The economist said Gujarat almost always comes around the middle when it comes to any ranking of development indicators, whether it is social indicators, human development index, child development index or multi-dimensional poverty index.
New Delhi: Development economist and activist Jean Dreze on Sunday said there was "no evidence" that the so-called "Gujarat Model" was a model in any sense, pointing out to the state’s backwardness in social indicators.
"If you look at almost any ranking of development indicators, whether it is social indicators, human development index, child development index, multi-dimensional poverty index and all the standard poverty indexes of the planning commission…Gujarat almost always comes around the middle," the noted economist said at a literature festival in the capital.
It was the case much before Narendra Modi became chief minister and it remained the case after that, said Dreze, who helped draft the first version of NREGA (now called the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act).
Dreze, who once wrote an article titled "Gujarat Muddle", recalled that the term, "Gujarat model", was coined around the time of the last Lok Sabha elections (2014).
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