Is Gujarat’s development record as bad as Arvind Kejriwal claims? Let’s separate the wheat from the chaff. On August 2, 2013, using the latest statistics from the Planning Commission, the 2011 Census

and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), I’d compared the performance of India’s 10 largest states. That article can be read here.

Seven months later, not much has changed. It’s therefore useful to update the data where available and revisit the conclusions.

The first premise: when comparing development indices of different states, size matters. It’s unfair and statistically pointless to, for example, compare the Human Development Index (HDI) of a relatively affluent state like Goa with that of a large, poor state like Bihar. Our data therefore compares India’s 10 largest states by population.

The second premise: we must compare these states across both economic as well as social indices to capture a realistic picture of relative progress.

First, a snapshot of India’s 10 most populous states which form a part of this study:

Population (2011 census)

Uttar Pradesh: 199 million Maharashtra: 112 million Bihar: 104 million West Bengal: 91 million Andhra Pradesh: 85 million Madhya Pradesh: 73 million Tamil Nadu: 72 million Rajasthan: 69 million Karnataka: 61 million Gujarat: 60 million

Start with economic indices of India’s 10 largest states:

Per capita income (FY 2012)

Maharashtra: Rs. 1,01,314 Gujarat: Rs. 89,668 Tamil Nadu: Rs. 84,496 Karnataka: Rs. 69,055 Andhra Pradesh: Rs. 68,970 West Bengal: Rs. 55,222 Rajasthan: Rs. 53,735 Madhya Pradesh: Rs. 37,994 Uttar Pradesh: Rs. 30,051 Bihar: Rs. 22,691

All-India Per Capita Income: Rs. 61,564

As I wrote in my August 2, 2013 piece, Maharashtra ranks no. 1, Gujarat no. 2 and Tamil Nadu no. 3. But Maharashtra has an unfair advantage because Mumbai, India’s wealthiest city, increases its average per capita income significantly. Let’s compute the precise impact.

Here are the GDPs of India’s wealthiest cities as per the IMF:

City GDPs (PPP)

Mumbai: $209 billion Delhi: $167 billion Kolkata: $150 billion Bangalore: $84 billion Hyderabad: $74 billion Chennai: $66 billion Ahmedabad: $52 billion Pune: $47 billion

(PPP: Purchasing Power Parity)

Again, as I wrote: if we exclude Mumbai’s $209 billion GDP from Maharashtra’s GDP (adjusting PPP GDP for exchange rate nominal GDP to align with Planning Commission figures) but keep Pune (whose $47-billion GDP is not dissimilar to the GDP of the capitals of other key states), Maharashtra’s per capita income falls from Rs. 1,01,314 to around Rs. 78,000. So without Mumbai (but including Pune), Maharashtra would slip to no. 3 in our per capita income chart. Gujarat would move up to no. 1, Tamil Nadu to no. 2.

Kejriwal’s criticism that Gujarat’s debt has tripled in 10 years is misleading if read in isolation. Fast-growing economies usually have rising debt but Gujarat’s debt: GDP ratio (the ratio that really matters) has not risen significantly because the state’s GDP during the past 10 years has also nearly tripled.

Is Kejriwal on sounder footing on Gujarat’s social indices? Alas no.

These are the Human Development Index (HDI) figures for India’s 10 largest states:

HDI (2011)

Maharashtra: .572 Tamil Nadu: .570 Gujarat: .527 Karnataka: .519 West Bengal: .492 Andhra Pradesh: .473 Rajasthan: .434 Uttar Pradesh: .380 Madhya Pradesh: .375 Bihar: .367

All-India HDI: .467

Gujarat is again in the top 3 on HDI, ahead of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Its HDI of .527 is significantly higher than India’s overall HDI of .467.

Finally, consider poverty levels. India’s poverty ratio (2013 figures) is 21.9%. Gujarat’s poverty ratio is 16.6%. The poverty ratios of India’s 10 largest states in ascending order:

Poverty Ratio % (2013)

Andhra Pradesh: 9.2 Tamil Nadu: 11.3 Rajasthan: 14.7 Gujarat: 16.6 Maharashtra: 17.4 West Bengal: 20 Karnataka: 20.9 Uttar Pradesh: 29.4 Madhya Pradesh: 31.7 Bihar: 33.7

Among India’s 10 largest states, Gujarat’s poverty ratio is better than Maharashtra’s and Karnataka’s. But inclusiveness? How have Muslims fared under Modi? According to the Planning Commission’s latest data on poverty, the ratio of rural Muslims in Gujarat below the poverty line is the lowest across India (7.7%), a fact rarely noticed by the English-language media.

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But let’s dig deeper into social indices. Take infant mortality rate (IMR). As a new UNICEFstudy notes, the all-India IMR is 42. Gujarat’s IMR is relatively better at 38.

Between 2003 and 2012, Gujarat’s IMR declined 33%, from 57 to 38. The all-India IMR declined more slowly, by 30%, during the same 2003-12 period. Over the last three years, Gujarat’s IMR has fallen 7.5% a year, among the steepest falls in India and ahead of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of 7%.

Kejriwal was right to raise the issue of farmer suicides in Gujarat. He said 800 farmers have committed suicide over the past 10 years in the state – around 80 a year. He should, however, have compared this to the more tragic figures in Congress-governed Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh where, as P. Sainath points out in his article in The Hindu, 3,786 and 2,572 farmers respectively committed suicide in one year alone (2012). That is roughly 30-40 times the farmer suicide rate in Gujarat. A single farmer’s suicide is an unacceptable tragedy. But it’s important to compare all available data across large states to provide perspective.

What about education and drop-out rates in Gujarat’s schools?

As Prof. Bibek Debroy points out here: “There is a decent database called DISE and is produced by NUEPA. The latest DISE tables are for 2011-12. For Gujarat, this covered 40,943 schools. I prefer to depend on this, because I can’t hope to visit 40,943 schools personally. What does this tell us about single-teacher schools?

“For Gujarat, in 2011-12, the percentage of single-teacher schools was 0.81%. Is 0.81% good, bad or ugly? The answer depends a bit on the perspective. The all-India comparable figure was 8.31%. But Gujarat is supposed to be a state where governance has improved. Why should we even have 0.81%? Fair point again. Therefore, let’s check out the similar analytical tables from DISE in 2004. In that year, in Gujarat, 2.73% of ‘all schools’ had no teachers and 5.04% of ‘all schools’ were single-teacher. 5.04% plus 2.73% is 7.77%. From 7.77% in 2004, it has come down to 0.81% in 2011-12.”

Turn now to school drop-out rates in Gujarat.

Prof. Debroy writes: “Drop-out rates are a pretty decent indicator. At what level of education shall we pick the drop-out rate? Let’s say primary education, defined as Standards I to V. Boys or girls? Perhaps both. In 2011-12, for that segment, the drop-out rate for girls was 2.08% and that for boys was 2.05%. In 2002-03, it was 19.14% for girls and 19.08% for boys. But like I said, one can always talk to the 2.08% of girls who dropped out and the 2.05% of boys who dropped out and create a song and dance out of it.”

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Clearly, Gujarat is not perfect. It has much to do in health, education and child care. But on most income and social indicators it does better than any other large state in India.

Kejriwal wants to meet Narendra Modi to “discuss” Gujarat’s development model. He should first get his facts right so he doesn’t waste his and Modi’s time.

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