Infrastructure

Gujarat was the first state in the country to enact the Gujarat Infrastructure Development Act. The Gujarat Infrastructure Development Board set up in 1995 under this Act facilitates the flow of funds from the private sector into the infrastructure sector and ensures coordination among various agencies. Gujarat was one of the first states to set up industrial parks in India and is now in the process of upgrading the infrastructure support for these parks. The state is now focused on setting up industry specific parks which can offer specialised services.

The state leads in labour productivity in the country and the highest proportion of the state's populace is engaged in running owned businesses.

The state's literacy rate stands at 69.1 per cent, which is higher than the national average of 65.38 per cent. Gujarat is home to India's leading business school, the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) and other important institutions such as National Institute of Design (NID), National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), the Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDI), among others. The state also has 25 engineering colleges, 26 management institutions and 300 technical institutes.

The State Government plans to establish a shipbuilding university, a first of its kind in the country in the district of Kutch.

Further, the industrial development in the state provides vast potential for setting up of new educational institutes in areas of marine engineering, port management, gems and jewellery design, fishery and fish processing, urban planning, disaster management and biotechnology.

The state has high life expectancy levels, low birth and death rates and a low infant mortality rate. 72.3 per cent of Gujarat's population is below the age of 45. The state has 1,637 government hospitals and 1,070 primary health centres.

Gujarat has a 1,600 km indented coastline with I I intermediate, I major and 29 minor ports, which handle over 80 per cent of the port traffic in the country.

Gujarat was the first state to announce a separate Port Policy, which integrates the development of ports with industrial development, power generation and infrastructure development. It was also the first state to privatise the construction of ports in the country.

Gujarat's ports handle 20 per cent of the total cargo of the country. Kandla, India's largest port handled 41.5 million tonnes of cargo in 2003-04. Other ports in the state, the Gujarat Pipavav Port at Pipavav (Saurashtra) and the recently commissioned Gujarat Adani Port at Mundra (Kutch) were the country's first greenfield ports to be developed on a Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) basis. Mundra is a state-of-the-art port that facilitates berthing of large vessels while Dahej in Gujarat is the country's only chemical handling port. It is estimated that by 2015, Gujarat's ports will handle 39 per cent of the country's total cargo.

Gujarat also has a road network spanning across 74,000 km. It is also well connected by rail with 5,310 km of rail lines.

Though Gujarat is self sufficient in its needs for domestic and commercial water consumption, it has initiated plans for the maximum development and utilisation of water resources in the state.

The Sardar Sarovar project will provide assured irrigation to 1.8 million hectares in Gujarat with water for domestic and industrial use in about 8,215 villages and 135 townships.

The state has undertaken extensive canal construction to supply water to the arid regions of Kutch. Also underway is Kalpasar, a multipurpose project that aims to build a dam across the Gulf of Khambhat with a tidal reservoir of 872 sq km.

Power

As the largest producer of natural gas in India, Gujarat intends to set up an extensive state-wide gas grid to augment its existing power capacity. The grid will use gas supplied by the recently commissioned LNG terminals at Dahej. In fact, by 2010, 20 per cent of the country's energy needs will be met by natural gas and Gujarat would play a crucial role in fulfilling these requirements.

The Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) has set up 168 industrial estates and another 106 are being developed in different parts of the state. The State Government has Special Economic Zones at Kandla and Surat and a software technology park at Gandhinagar. GIDC plans to set up an apparel park in Surat. Additionally, GIDC has developed an industrial park in Dahej, which includes a petrochemical complex with facilities like a private airstrip, effluent collection and disposal, a liquid chemical port and railway lines.

To encourage investment in the state, Gujarat also gives autonomy and funds to industrial estates to implement maintenance and modernisation measures. It is also encouraging organisations to set up units in these zones by giving them tax holidays and subsidies like exemption from stamp duty and registration fees.

Content Source: www.ibef.org