Cricketer-turned-newbie politician Sreesanth who is contesting the Kerala Assembly polls on a BJP ticket, recently announced big plans for the state: he would like to see Kerala develop the way “Modiji has done for Gujarat”.
However, a recent CAG report, among others, might make him want to rethink his plans, because if his voters get wind of the contents of the report, they might not take too kindly to him.
On May 28, Sreesanth, who will contest the Thiruvananthapuram seat, told journalists that he would like to usher in the Gujarat development model.
Social media users were quick to point out to Sreesanth that he really should study up his facts.
Some also asked him if “backwards development” was the new poll plank of the BJP.
Sreesanth wants to develop Kerala to Gujarat's level? Backwards development, new poll plank? https://t.co/KMuJ6Ucjgx
— Milli Gazette (@milligazette) March 29, 2016
For Sreesanth and anyone else looking to dismiss such reactions as run of the mill anti-BJP rhetoric, reports and statistics are unfortunately not on their side.
The CAG report tabled in the Gujarat Assembly last week criticized the state administration on a number of points including deficiencies in police equipment, failure to properly implement its skill development programme, ineffective management of water bodies, and deficiencies in health services.
Kerala and Gujarat are, literally, poles apart on many development indicators – specifically human development indicators and child health indicators.
According to one computation based on HDI methodology of the UN Development Programme, for instance, Kerala tops the list of Indian states in health and education, the only one that would qualify as having high human development.
Gujarat, however, ranked a very mediocre ninth on the ranking, coming just ahead of the all-India average.
Similarly, a ranking of states on child-related indicators in November 2015 (immunization, adolescent female literacy, ante-natal medical services, childhood weight ranges) based on data from the Rapid Survey on Children, ranked Kerala at the top, far ahead of Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, the nearest contenders. Gujarat stood at rank 15 among the 20 largest states of the country.
This is a pattern that repeats across a number of indexes produced between 2013 and 2014, including the Multidimensional Poverty Index by Oxford University, the Composite Development Index developed by the Raghuram Rajan Committee, and the Planning Commission’s poverty estimates.
Between these various indexes, a range of factors from deprivations of food, shelter, sanitation, schooling and health care to factors like per capita consumption, household amenities, urbanization, connectivity, financial inclusion and so on, have all been measured.
In all of these rankings, Gujarat stood at a middle-of-the-pack rank of 9 or 10.