MISSION MADHYA PRADESH
The state has become the template for India’s second green revolution. If only it could replicate this in industry and focus more on reducing regional disparities
The erotic 10th century Khajuraho sculptures built by the Chandela kings contrast sharply with the serene Sanchi stupa erected by Emperor Asoka (3rd century BC), yet both the Hindu and Buddhist structures symbolise Madhya Pradesh’s monumental historical legacy. Equally powerful is the state’s literary tradition: the classical Sanskrit poet Kalidasa’s Meghadootam was a serenade of love for the beauty of prosperous Ujjain under King Vikramaditya just as the modern-day novel, A River Sutra, by Gita Mehta, is an ode to the holy river Narmada, lifeline of MP. Bhopal’s Bharat Bhavan has lorded over Hindi literature since 1982 with its array of avant garde poets, novelists, artists and theatre personalities.
Meanwhile, the rugged rock-cut Udayagiri caves, the Bhimbetka rock shelters in Raisen district, the ornately built Jahangir Mahal in Orchha, the royal Rajwada in Indore, the great lakes of Bhopal built by the Paramara Raja Bhoj of Malwa, the palaces of Gwalior, the ancient Kal Bhairav temple, the Panch Pandav caves and the Ujjain Simhastha make MP a tourist’s paradise no less than Rajasthan or Kerala. In sharp contrast to neighbouring Rajasthan’s Thar desert, MP, nicknamed “the heart of India”, with magnificent parks such as the Satpura national park in Pachmarhi, Bandhavgarh Tiger Safari, Kanha Tiger Reserve and Pench National Park near Seoni echo the enduring world of Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book.
Against such awesome architectural splendour, rich literature and history and despite a thick forest area of 77,462 square kilometres, covering 30 per cent of the state, MP was part of the BIMARU (acronym along with Bihar, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh for their poor economic status) states and the Empowered Action Group (EAG) states in the past. The reason is not far to seek: with 6 per cent of India’s population and 9.4 per cent of the country’s territory, MP still constitutes only 4 per cent of India’s GDP, batting much below its potential. Even among the EAG states, MP is somewhat of a mystery, less visible in tourism than neighbouring Rajasthan, less politically salient compared to its northern neighbour Uttar Pradesh and lagging behind its western and southern neighbours Gujarat and Maharashtra in industrial development.
Following Independence, the Madhya Pradesh state was created in 1950
with Nagpur as its capital. This state included the southern parts of presentday MP and the northeastern portion of today’s Maharashtra. In 1956, the state was reorganised and combined with the states of Madhya Bharat, Vindhya Pradesh and Bhopal to form the new Madhya Pradesh, with Bhopal as its capital. The Marathi-speaking Vidarbha region was removed and merged with the then Bombay state. MP retained the title of India’s largest state by geographical area until 2000. In 2000, the Chhattisgarh region was split to create a new state, and Rajasthan ended up becoming the largest state of India by area. Agriculture is the mainstay of MP’s economy. Less than half of the land area is cultivable and its distribution is quite uneven because of variations in topography, rainfall and soil. The main cultivated areas are found in the Chambal valley, the Malwa and Rewa plateaus. The Narmada valley, covered with river-borne alluvium, is another fertile area. The most important crops are rice, wheat, sorghum (jowar), corn (maize), pulses (legumes such as peas, beans or lentils), and peanuts (groundnuts). Rice is grown primarily in the east, but now a substantial area in the central region of the state has been brought under Basmati rice production, especially in Raisen, Sehore, Hoshangabad and Harda districts. Wheat
and sorghum are more important in western MP. The state is the largest producer of soybean, gram and other pulses, tomatoes and also produces substantial amounts of linseed, sesame, sugarcane and cotton, as well as inferior millets grown in the hilly areas. Opium is produced in the western districts of Mandsaur, Neemuch and Ratlam, bordering Rajasthan.
A remarkable turnaround in agriculture with growth rates surging at an unprecedented 18 per cent in the last five years has helped MP delink from the BIMARU categorisation. Under Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the state has won the Krishi Karman Award five times in a row. Prime Minister Narendra Modi presented the fifth award to Chouhan at the Krishi Unnat Mela in New Delhi on March 17, 2018. MP has trebled its wheat production, from 73 lakh metric tonnes in 2004-05 to 219 lakh metric tonnes in 2016-17, beating Punjab and Haryana, the erstwhile leaders of the green revolution. Wheat productivity in MP has almost doubled, from 18.21 quintal per hectare in 2004-05 to 34.13 quintal per hectare today.
For an entire decade from 2005-06 to 2015-16, MP witnessed higher growth rates in crop production than the Indian average. Wheat, foodgrains, rice, cotton (lint), sugarcane and raw jute and mesta grew at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 5 per cent. Foodgrains grew at an average CAGR of 8.7 per cent, cotton and sugarcane surged at 10.9 per cent and 7.6 per cent, respectively.
This remarkable transformation in agriculture has helped MP make a major dent in its poverty figures. According to a World Bank study, poverty in MP increased after liberalisation in 1991 till 2005, but has declined steadily since then. “As per estimates based on the Tendulkar committee methodology, poor people living below the poverty line in rural areas in 2011-12--when compared to 2004-05—came down
from 48.6 per cent to 31.7 per cent in MP,” says eminent economist Ganesh Kawadia of Indore.
Following a sharp fall in crop prices in 2017 (which fuelled the farmer protests in MP after June), the state government launched a price deficiency scheme in October 2017 which directly compensates farmers when they sell their produce below the MSP set by the government. Named the Mukhya Mantri Bhavantar Bhugtan Yojana, the deficit price payment scheme has seen an impressive enrolment of over 2 million pulses and oilseeds farmers. Indeed, the Bhavantar Bhugtan Yojana is being discussed by the NITI Aayog for implementation in the entire country now. “The community panchayats and schemes like the Ladli Laxmi Yojana, Janani Suraksha Yojana and several others have a direct connect for the chief minister with the electorate,” says Pratap Verma, author of Madhya Pradesh Growth Story.
The Panna tiger reserve and the jungles of Bunder in Chhatarpur district of MP are one of the richest sources of diamonds in the world. According to recent news reports, the Adanis and the Vedanta group are bidding for the Bunder diamond reserves estimated at $9 billion which the multi-national Rio Tinto abandoned recently. Moreover, the state has the highest copper reserves in the country and large reserves of coal, coal-bed methane, manganese and dolomite.
Leader in agriculture, laggard in manufacturing
However, while MP has seen an unprecedented and sustained surge in agricultural growth, it has lagged behind in industrial growth, especially manufacturing. “The main reasons for the paradox are two: lack of infrastructure, mainly good roads and 24x7 electricity,” says Professor Yatindra Singh Sisodia of Ujjain. Between 1990 and 2000, some leading corporate houses made indus- trial investments in MP but between the years 2000 to 2003, a phase of deindustrialisation set in, with the closure of whatever initiatives were taken, explains Sisodia. “Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has tried hard to get private investments from both home and abroad, but the response has been rather lukewarm. In diamonds, investments have come only for extraction but the entire processing is done in Surat for exports. Only Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali products have come as a major investment, but that too in processing, not manufacturing,” says Sisodia.
Parikshit Dey and Shahab Ali Khan, in a research paper on the state, found a strong correlation between economic development and regions where road and dam infrastructure exist. Ipso facto, in those regions which lack these, there is an alarming absence of development, especially of manufacturing industries.
Kawadia agrees with the findings but also argues that “agricultural surplus is not able to transform into industrial investment in MP because the state government is not emphasising agriculture-related industries, especially agro-processing. Imposing industries from above means it is unable to build forward or backward linkages with agriculture which is crucial
for industrialisation.”
However, some industries have flourished in the state. MP ranks third in cement production in India, Satna district being the main source. The state also accounts for around 12 per cent of India’s total cement production capacity and consumes approximately 40 per cent of the total production. The easy availability of coal provides a good option to cement manufacturing companies to set up captive power plants and hence save on power costs. Given the limestone deposits of 8 million tonnes in the Damoh-Panna area and 20 million tonnes in the Bela Pagra region of Rewa, these northern districts are considered highly prospective regions for cement manufacturing.
Pithampur, an industrial city in the Dhar district in close proximity to Indore, has become a hub for the auto component industry. The size of the industry in MP is around $306 million (Rs 1,993 crore).
In its study on ‘Cluster Development for Inclusive Growth in Madhya Pradesh’ in 2014-15, apex industrial body Assocham had proposed setting up 20 small and medium enterprises (SME) clusters, each accommodating about 1,200 units with a potential to create over 500,000 direct and indirect jobs. The cluster route to industrialisation would be on public private partnership (PPP) model to boost industrial activities in the state. The problem is that most of these clusters are in and around major cities like Indore and Bhopal where connectivity and infrastructure are already better developed. These clusters need to penetrate the relatively underdeveloped southern and eastern regions of the state.
MP vs the other states
While Madhya Pradesh is a model state in terms of agriculture, performing at least 6 to 7 percentage points higher than the second best performer, Rajasthan, the state is perched at the bottom of the heap in industry, its sectoral share similar to Uttar Pradesh, its northern neighbour. In services, MP’s CAGR is higher only compared to Chhattisgarh, and at par with Jharkhand and Himachal. In terms of growth rates, industry grew at a measly CAGR of 2.1 per cent, 3.5 percentage points below the all-India average. Services grew at a CAGR of 6.4 per cent, just a percentage point below the top five states. Clearly, the state’s overall growth performance is largely dictated by an unusually high performance in agriculture.
THE BEST DISTRICTS
The India Today State of the State (SOTS) survey, started in 2003, analyses the performance of districts in each state over a period of time and across 10 parameters—education, health, agriculture, industry, services, infrastructure, water and sanitation, law and order, prosperity and overall development. Each parameter is a composite index of certain key variables, measurable across time, provided comparable data is available.
EDUCATION Best district: Seoni
Seoni has the fourth-highest ratio of girls to boys in primary schools and the fifth highest number of schools per 1,000 people with one of the lowest
dropout rates of students from primary to upper primary classes. The administration of Seoni has vowed to attain 100 per cent pass percentage in its schools by 2022, in other words increasing the pass percentage by 40 percentage points in the next four years.
Most improved district: Gwalior
Climbing from 36th position to 10th in one decade in education, Gwalior has registered an 11 per cent improvement in female literacy. In teacher-pupil ratio, the district ranked highest in 2015-16 as against 50th in 2005-06 and in classroom to student ratio it climbed up from 47th position to 3rd position in the same period.
HEALTH Best district: Raisen
The district has attained 78.5 per cent immunisation and ranks fourth in terms of use of modern contraceptives by women in the 15-49 age group. As far as the government’s support to health infrastructure is concerned, Raisen town has two hospitals with a total capacity of 180 beds. There are 11 dispensaries with a total capacity of 200 beds. The district also has seven maternity homes and four hospitals specialising in tuberculosis treatment.
Most improved district: Guna
Between 2002-04 and 2015-16, Guna district improved its health ranking from 31st to 7th. It showed a major improvement in institutional deliveries, from 29.8 per cent in 2002-04 to 90.1 per cent in 2015-16. The immunisation coverage improved remarkably, from 12.8 per cent to 65.1 per cent during the period. The use of modern contraceptives by women saw a 17 percentage point jump, from 42.3 per cent to 59.4 per cent.
INFRASTRUCTURE Best district: Bhopal
Planned and designed by the visionary M.N. Buch, it comes as no surprise that capital Bhopal was adjudged the best in infrastructure. The category has four variables—electricity connection, access to telephones, good houses and access to banking services. Bhopal district stood second in household electricity connections and access to telephones. About 93 per cent households in the district have electricity connection, compared to the state average of 67 per cent. And as much as 73 per cent households have a telephone connection, as against the state average of around 46 per cent.
Most improved district: Mandla
While the percentage of households in Mandla having access to a telephone has increased from just 1.9 per cent to 20.8 per cent, the district also witnessed an increase in the percentage of households with access to banking services, from 1 per cent to 77.5 per cent in the past one decade.
WATER AND SANITATION Best district: Indore
Indore district grabbed the top position in three of the four variables under this parameter—number of households connected to a closed drainage, number of households having toilets within the premises and households with access to drinking water within the premises.
Most improved district: Satna
In the variable proportion of population for each latrine within the premises, Satna jumped from 36th position to 15th. In the proportion of households having toilets within the premises, the district’s position improved from 30th to 14th. The proportion of households with access to safe drinking water increased from 55 per cent to 83 per cent. The relative position of the district in terms of access to safe water improved from 39th to 19th.
AGRICULTURE Best district: Dewas
Dewas district was ranked number one in per capita value of agricultural
output. It occupied the fourth position in contribution of agriculture to the district domestic product. Compared to the state’s average, Dewas district held a higher percentage in net irrigated to net sown area, share of agriculture to district domestic product, agricultural GDP per capita and percentage of cultivators to farm workers. In terms of net irrigated area to net sown area and share of agriculture to the district domestic product, Dewas occupied the 14th and 13th positions respectively among the state’s 51 districts.
Most improved district: Barwani
Barwani district improved its ranking in agriculture from 34th to 18th over a decade. In terms of sectoral share of agriculture to the district domestic product, Barwani climbed from 24th position to second place. In terms of per capita value of agricultural output, Barwani improved its rank from 50th to 23rd. In per capita agricultural district domestic product, its position jumped from 35th to 19th.
INDUSTRY Best district: Katni
Katni district’s number one position in industry is based on its performance on two variables: sectoral share of industry to total district domestic
product and proportion of industrial workers to total workers. While the district is number one in the latter, it ranked fourth in the first.
Most improved district: Shahdol
Shahdol’s ranking improved from 45th to 15th over the past one decade. In terms of sectoral share of industry to the district domestic product, it went up from the 37th position to 23rd in the same period. In proportion of industrial workers to total workers, the district improved from 49th position to 14th.
SERVICES Best district: Bhopal
Bhopal recorded the highest percentage of workers engaged in the services sector among total workers in all sectors. The contribution of workers in the services sector was 53.4 per cent, which is about 33 percentage points higher than the state average of 20.2 per cent. Apart from Bhopal, the other districts that completed the list of top five are Indore, Gwalior, Jabalpur and Balaghat. That the top five districts in services comprise the top five cities of the state came as no surprise.
Most improved district: Anuppur
Anuppur’s ranking in services improved from 46th in 2001 to ninth in 2011. The district’s data reveals a substantial growth in proportion of workers in the service sector, from 10.8 per cent to 35.9 per cent. In sectoral share of the services sector, Anuppur registered a 5 percentage point increase, from 28.1 per cent in 2001 to 33.3 per cent in 2011. The district, which was ranked 34th in terms of percentage share of the services sector to the district domestic product, has managed to jump to the sixth position during the past decade.
PROSPERITY Best district: Indore
Indore has the highest per capita income in the state, and it’s 227 per cent higher than the state average. Indore’s per capita GDP is Rs 1,08,157 as compared to the state average of Rs 47,846. In terms of monthly per capita consumption expenditure (Rs 1,844), Indore district ranked third out of the 51 districts. The state average for the same is Rs 1,124.
Most improved district: Harda
Harda’s ranking improved from 25th to 16th over the past 10 years. In per capita GDP, the district improved its position from 18th to 13th.
LAW AND ORDER Best district: Sheopur
The rate of occurrence of crime is a composite index measured by four variables—crimes against women, kidnapping and abduction cases, murder and other crimes. Sheopur’s crime statistics are far lower than the state average in all four variables. Crimes against women per 100,000 people in Sheopur was
nine compared to 24 in the state. The number of kidnappings and abductions per 100,000 persons in Sheopur was three as compared to nine for the state. Sheopur had the lowest number of rape cases per 100,000 people, while kidnappings and abductions were the fourth lowest in the state. Other crimes (barring rape, murder, kidnapping and abduction) stood at 204 per 100,000 persons as compared to 311 in the state.
Most improved district: Khandwa
Khandwa (earlier East Nimar) district showed the highest improvement in law and order over a decade. It climbed up to seventh position in 2015, from 44th in 2005. This improvement is a result of the district managing to cut down cases of rape, kidnapping, murder and other crimes in the time period. From 44th place in 2005, the district was 35th in 2015 in terms of rapes per 100,000 people. In kidnap ping and abduction cases, the district’s ranking improved from 47th to 13th. In terms of number of murders per 100,000 people, the district’s ranking improved from 14th to second. Meanwhile, Shajapur district won a special award in the law and order category.
OVERALL DEVELOPMENT Best district: Indore
Indore, the seat of the Holkar empire from 18th century, is 51 per cent urbanised, highly industrialised and emerged number one in prosperity and water and sanitation and second best in infrastructure and services. Housing both the Indian Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of Management and with 81 per cent literacy rate, Indore has emerged as an education hub.
Most improved district: Rewa
Rewa jumped from 31st to 3rd position in industry given its rich limestone deposits and the presence of several cement plants which have boosted its local economy. Power generation in the district is set to get a major fillip with the commissioning of the single big gest solar power project in the country, the 750 MW Rewa Ultra Mega Solar Project in Gurh this year. Despite a large rural population, Rewa’ s literacy rate is up there at 73.4 per cent.
The way forward
MP is a typically bipolar state, with the Congress party dominating state politics from 1993 to 2003 and the BJP becoming the new dominant party since 2003. Shivraj Singh Chouhan is the longestrunning chief minister of the BJP in the state, incumbent for over 13 years, close to three terms. Given the political stability under his regime, a key component of economic development, growth rates under the BJP regime have proved to be much higher than during the previous Congress regimes. For example, during the 10 years of Congress rule from 1994 to 2003, the state saw an annual CAGR of 4.21 per cent, while India grew at an annual CAGR of 6.1 per cent.
That said, the BJP regime (20042018) in MP has also coincided with the rapid growth years of the Indian economy. While the Indian economy grew at an annual CAGR of 7.65 per cent, MP grew at a higher rate of 7.74 per cent in the same period. While during the BJP’s first term in 20032008, the growth rate of 6.8 per cent was lower than India’s average of 8.7 per cent; in Chouhan’s second term, MP’s growth rate has been 8.6 per cent, trumping that of India at 6.6 per cent. Clearly, the Chouhan regime’s performance has been above average. The agricultural transformation during this time has turned it into the No. 1 model state, bypassing Punjab, Haryana and even its top neighbours, Gujarat and Maharashtra. However, the key question remains: why does MP, a frontrunner in agriculture, turn out to be a laggard in industry?
Of the 51 districts in the state, at least half have no industry at all, says Kawadia. He makes a checklist for what the state government needs to do to turn things around. “The government needs to build agroprocessing
industries in each and every district, such as oil processing, pulses and tomato puree and other products. MP is the top producer of oilseeds, pulses, tomato and soybean. Additionally, the emphasis should be on promoting religious and health tourism by building hotels and hospitals, and providing the necessary infrastructure and skills training that will help boost the tourism sector. Tourism has tremendous potential in the state, given its great architectural splendour and 30 per cent forest cover. It will also generate a large number of jobs, thus tackling the problem of unemployment,” says Kawadia.
Any roadmap of the future must give top priority to industrialisation, mainly manufacturing and mining. The successes of the Indore-Dhar, BhopalRaisen, Gwalior and Jabalpur industrial hubs must be replicated in other relatively backward districts. Instead of smart cities, the focus should be on smart villages in developing districts. Beti Padhao and Beti Bachao are good slogans but the administration must sincerely work on women’s education and their health. MP doesn’t have a particularly good record in maternal mortality , infant mortality and other human development indicators.
Although the top cities with high rates of industrialisation such as Indore and Bhopal score highest in the district awards, remote districts such as Rewa, Khandwa, Sheopur, Harda, Anuppur, Shahdol, Katni, Barwani, Dewas and Mandla have won top awards at times for the level of development and or in the most improved category. This kind of competition among districts is the hallmark of democratic development. Even the most backward districts can turn the tables if community leaders, the district administration and the state leadership make the necessary efforts.
If the fruits of development have to reach the poorest of the poor, MP’s leaders must ensure that the tribal poor in the southern and eastern regions are empowered. The disparity between the western half of the state, particularly the Malwa and the Gwalior belts, and that of the south-eastern half, bordering Chhattisgarh, is almost as gaping as that between the prosperous western UP and its penurious eastern half.
The sheer poverty is also why Maoism has reared its ugly head in these districts bordering Chhattisgarh and the Vidarbha regions of Maharashtra. If this gap is narrowed down, it might be the game-changer in moving MP closer to developed states such as Gujarat and Kerala. Connectivity via better roads, electricity and telecommunication is one way. Focusing on education, health and water and sanitation is another.