Gujarat’s Contradictions: A Growth Engine with Social and Environmental Blindspots

I watch Gujarat today with a mixture of admiration and unease. On paper, the state reads like a modern economic fable — rising GDP shares, booming industry and expanding exports. Yet when I look closer, I see fissures: fiscal irregularities, gaps in public education, alarming wildlife losses, and the social questions that rapid growth often buries.

The numbers that inspire — and why they must not blind us

There is no denying the scale of Gujarat’s recent economic achievements. The state is being described as a major growth engine for the country — contributing around 8.2% to national GDP, about 18% of industrial production and nearly 27% of national exports in the figures reported Gujarat has become the country's growth engine: GDP, industrial production and exports. These are not small wins; they are structural shifts that change livelihoods, attract capital and remake cities.

And yet, growth as an economic contour does not automatically translate into holistic well‑being. A society that measures itself only by output risks ignoring the things that give meaning to a community: accountable public finance, cultural education, and the stewardship of nature.

When the ledger returns uneasy answers

The recent CAG findings are a reminder that numbers on the sunny side can hide shadows. The audit revealed serious inconsistencies between receipts and expenditures, a rising fiscal deficit and large interest payments — the report notes a ₹23,493 crore fiscal gap and interest payments of ₹27,176 crore for 2023–24 — and flagged unutilized or misaccounted funds and missing utilization certificates amounting to thousands of crores CAG report: financial discrepancies, Gujarat government paid ₹27,176 crore interest in 2023–24.

This matters because financial health is not an abstract metric: it determines whether schools get teachers, forests get monitoring, and social programs get continuity. A high growth rate coupled with opaque or sloppy fiscal practice is like building a tall building on shaky foundations.

The quiet erosion of cultural education

One detail from the public records made me pause: in the last two years, not a single art or music teacher has been appointed in government schools; sport and computer posts saw only limited hiring No recruitment of art and music teachers in government schools in 2 years. We celebrate industrial diversification and "one district, one product" initiatives, yet neglect that which nurtures creativity and cultural continuity.

Education is not only about employability; it is also about the capacity to imagine, to question and to create meaning. When a system sidelines arts and music, it narrows the future it prepares children for — and that is a civic loss that growth figures will never reflect.

Gir’s lions: an ecological alarm bell

Perhaps the most visceral symbol of imbalance is the news from Gir — 166 Asiatic lion deaths in a year, from disease to accidents and other causes, a toll the government itself acknowledged in the assembly 166 lions die in Gir in the last one year; government admits causes in assembly. A thriving economy that cannot safeguard its emblematic wildlife asks a question about priorities.

Conservation is not sentimentalism. It is a test of institutional capacity to monitor, prevent and respond. When apex predators — indicators of ecological balance — suffer such losses, our ecosystems and the communities dependent on them are at risk.

A progressive reform — and the tests it brings

On the reform side, I welcome the Factory Act amendment that permits women to work night shifts with statutory safety conditions, which could expand employment options for women while preserving safeguards Factories Act amendment bill 2025 passed; women may work night shifts with conditions. It is an example of policy trying to reconcile liberty, livelihood and protection.

But the success of such reforms depends on implementation: real, enforceable safety protocols, accessible grievance redressal, and vigilant inspection. A law on paper that fails in practice too often becomes another statistic.

Another recent legislative move worth noting is the Gujarat Public Trust (Amendments) / Gujarat Janvishwas-style reforms passed in 2025, which mirror the Centre's "Jan Vishwas" approach by decriminalizing a large number of regulatory provisions (reports cite around 516 provisions across 11 laws), replacing imprisonment for minor lapses with penalties, and aiming to simplify compliance and strengthen "trust‑based" governance Gujarat Public Trust Bill 2025 passed in the Assembly. While such deregulatory steps can reduce court burdens and help startups and MSMEs, they also require careful safeguards so that easing compliance does not come at the cost of transparency, worker protections, environmental safeguards or effective enforcement.

What these threads add up to — a personal reflection

I keep returning to one thought: development is a moral project as much as it is an economic one. Progress that forgets fiscal transparency, cultural nourishment and ecological stewardship is incomplete. We can build factories and grow exports, yet if budgets are opaque, classrooms lack music teachers and forests lose their guardians, the ledger of human flourishing will show stains.

My reflections are not an indictment of growth itself. They are a call to humility: to treat economic success as an opportunity to invest in public goods that are harder to measure but essential to sustain societies.

• Invest the gains of growth in strengthening public finance systems and transparency so that state resources truly reach people and programs CAG report.
• Rebalance priorities so that cultural education — art, music, sports — is not the first casualty of administrative shortfalls teacher recruitment report.
• Treat wildlife conservation as integral to development, not an optional extra; the lions of Gir are a test of our long‑term stewardship Gir lion deaths.
• Make labor reforms meaningful by pairing them with enforceable protections so that expanded opportunity truly benefits women and families Factories Act amendment.
• Approach deregulatory measures (such as the Gujarat Public Trust/Jan Vishwas-style amendments) with a dual lens: reduce unnecessary criminalisation and compliance burden, but build parallel accountability mechanisms so deregulatory gains do not weaken public protections Gujarat Public Trust Bill 2025 passed.

If Gujarat is to remain a growth engine, it must also become a stewardship engine: converting economic momentum into resilient institutions, cultured citizens and a protected natural heritage. Only then will the numbers we celebrate reflect the deeper health of our society.

---

Regards,
[Hemen Parekh]
Any questions? Feel free to ask my Virtual Avatar at hemenparekh.ai