Bottom-up focus: All central Guj dists to be mapped soon

As part of the government bid to achieve faster growth by focusing on districts, each district in the Saurashtra, Bharuch and Vadodara region of central Gujarat will be mapped in the first phase, commerce and industry minister Suresh Prabhu said Thursday. These districts will be mapped by the Nabard and will help achieve the objective of better the growth rates by 3-4 percent per annum, he added.

He said the government wants to focus on the districts as part of its bottom-up approach for boosting growth so that GDP of each district grows faster which in turn will cumulatively contribute for a higher national GDP. Addressing the Federation of Gujarat Industries, he said many chief ministers have responded positively to this district level focus.

"We are mapping each district in the Saurashtra and Bharuch and Vadodara regions of central Gujarat to increase GDP by 3-4 percent and agencies like Nabard are working with the government on this," Prabhu said. For other states in the first phase, six districts have already been identified--Muzaffarpur in Bihar, Varanasi in UP, Vishakhapatnam in Andhra, Ratnagiri & Sindhudurg in Maharashtra and one in Himachal, he said, adding the results from Maharashtra are encouraging and it will definitely help in achieving the target of higher growth.

The baseline study of these two districts were carried out by the National Council for Applied Economic Research..