Speaking at the recently concluded India Today Conclave on "India Tomorrow: Perception and Reality." VS Naipaul passed judgment that "Bengal was the economic and intellectual leader of India till it discovered Marxism. It discovered Marxism and like poor Russia in 1917, committed suicide. The economic lead of Bengal has vanished and so has the cultural lead." (See The Hindu of February 26). While cultural development cannot be quantified, economic growth can be and the evidence before us suggests that Sir Vidia's opinion takes more than just poetic license with the facts. The facts are that after 1993-94 West Bengal has the second highest growth rate with 7.2% with only Karnataka (8.1%) ahead of it. It would also seem that the Marxist rate of growth has been better than the Hindu rate of growth since India only grew at 6.3% during this period?
Even in terms of growth of per capita income West Bengal has fared much better than all other states during the post reforms era. It achieved an average growth of 5.5% after 1993-94 as opposed to the nationwide growth of 4.3%. This is even more revealing when you consider that during this period West Bengal was also racking up an average annual population growth of 1.78% between 1991-2001, which is much higher than the rate of the high achievers like Tamil Nadu (1.11%). If one were to consider the population growth since 1981, West Bengal grew at 2.34%, which is uncomfortably close to the national average of 2.51%. Undoubtedly the seem
RE:Development in West Bengal!!!
by dumdum on Nov 13, 2007 03:45 PM Permalink
fared much better?where you got those statistics? In CPIM office?these are incorrect numbers . i think bengalis cant work in bengal thats why they run away from their state.The only thin bengalis know is eat rice and fish and discuss politics.
RE:RE:Development in West Bengal!!!
by dumdum on Nov 13, 2007 03:46 PM Permalink
another commie here.just tell me one very very simple thing.which industries are there in west bengal? can u name a single one?
RE:RE:RE:Development in West Bengal!!!
by dumdum on Nov 13, 2007 03:49 PM Permalink
excluding pune and nagpur.if u exclude kolkata from west bengal your income is well below ethiopia or eritrea. the living standards and education is so low in WB that it can compete only with bihar.
RE:Development in West Bengal!!!
by Fab Reens on Nov 13, 2007 03:56 PM Permalink
The Guardian, January 5: The paper quoted Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattachajee as saying that India must learn the lessons of history and "reform, perform or perish". When you start with a low base, your growth rate seems higher (called the base effect). It was only when the danda was well up the behind that the leftists woke up and this is in the last few years only. A few years do not make history. If other countries have given up communism after decades of experimenting with it - there are many reasons for it. But you probably don't want to debate that and just gloss over some immediate facts. That's not going to cut any ice with the rest of India, pal!
RE:Development in West Bengal!!!
by abhi on Nov 13, 2007 03:43 PM Permalink
Continue...
Undoubtedly the seemingly uncontrollable and unabated migration from Bangladesh has contributed to this relatively high growth of population. Whatever are the reasons for this we can only surmise that the rise in par capita incomes would have been even higher if there was no influx from the neighboring countries like Nepal and Bangladesh, and even neighboring states like Bihar and Orissa?
Even more interesting is the fact that per capita incomes of West Bengal and Maharashtra, after excluding the two great metros of Mumbai and Kolkata are fairly close. West Bengal's per capita after excluding Kolkata is Rs. 12,671 while Maharashtra's without Mumbai is Rs.13, 897. Thus, even if we accept for a moment that VS Naipaul is correct in assuming that West Bengal has a Marxist system, its performance is not too bad compared to what then must be the most laissez-faire of our states - Maharashtra. We can be certain that if the per capita incomes of other two big cities of Maharashtra - Pune and Nagpur - are excluded, the state's per capita income will be below that of West Bengal. Unfortunately Naipaul's moving mouth having spoken will move on while the words will linger on.
This performance is quite extraordinary when you factor in the dominant reality of rural West Bengal in that it ranks third from the bottom in terms of irrigated acreage with only 28.1% of its agricultural land irrigated. This is when it is the third most densely agricultural state in India with almos
RE:Development in West Bengal!!!
by abhi on Nov 13, 2007 03:44 PM Permalink
continue... This is when it is the third most densely agricultural state in India with almost 77% of its land area under the plough. If like Punjab or Haryana with 89.72% and 65.0% respectively of agricultural acreage irrigated, West Bengal too were to benefit from centrally financed irrigation and centrally subsidized procurement, it would be fair to assume that its economic performance would have been even of a higher order. Then even without a communist system, the communist regime in West Bengal would have perhaps had a sustained growth rate closer to that of China?
Between 1984 and 2001, industrial capital investment in West Bengal only increased fourfold when it grew by more than seven times in the rest of India. This also coincided with the decline in the value addition of West Bengal industry from 8.8% in 1984-5 to 4.0% in 2000-1. During the same period the number of industries in the state was almost static - 5369 to 6091 - when it grew from almost 97,000 to almost 131,000 for India. Even worse was that during this period the numbers employed in these industries declined by almost half, from 917,000 to about 456,000.
