The Economic Survey of Maharashtra for the present fiscal shows the total expenditure may only be ₹45,721. It is 80% of the ₹56,997 allotted by the State government in its annual plan outlay for various projects for the year 2016-17. For consecutive years, the expenditure has not crossed the 85% mark, raising questions over the financial discipline in the State.
According to the survey data, though the State has attracted the highest number of industrial proposals having maximum employment potential, the total amount of investment in Gujarat is higher than that of Maharashtra.
From August 1991 to November 2016, Maharashtra recorded around 19,437 approved industrial proposals compared with Gujarat’s 13,308. The total investment in Gujarat was ₹14,36,962 crore while Maharashtra received investments worth ₹11,37,783 crore.
Of the total approved projects, only 8,664 (44.6%) with an investment of ₹2,69,814 crore (23.7%) generating about 11.45 lakh jobs were commissioned. A total of 2,107 projects with an investment of ₹87,701 crore and generating 2.98 lakh jobs are under execution.
The State has failed to start any new Special Economic Zones (SEZs). The number of SEZs in the State has remained stagnant at 25. In the Economic Survey 2015-16, the State had 69 approved SEZs, which has now been reduced to 68. The present survey also does not provide data about latest investment in Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). It has carried numbers from the 2015-16 report.
The report also highlights one of the major problems of agriculture: majority of land holdings belong to small and marginal farmers. The report says, “Agricultural Census 2010-11 indicates that out of 1.37 crore total operational holdings in the State, 78.6% belonged to marginal and small farmers with land holding less than or equal to two hectares. The proportion of operational holdings of SC & ST was 7.5% and 6.3% with area of operational holdings 6.6% and 7.9% respectively. The average size of land holding of SC & ST was 1.27 hectares and 1.80 hectares respectively as against 1.44 hectares for all operational holdings.”
The report also throws light on Scheduled Caste Sub-Plan expenditure, which is only around 40% of the total outlay of ₹6725 crore. Similarly, for the Tribal Sub-Plan only ₹1701.45 crore was spent out of ₹5357.72 crore till December 2016.
According to the India Human Development Report – 2011 published by the erstwhile Planning Commission, Kerala with a Human Development Index of 0.790 tops the list and Maharashtra with HDI 0.572 is at sixth position. As per the Maharashtra Human Development Report – 2012 published by the State, Mumbai tops the list with HDI 0.841 followed by Pune (0.814). Nandurbar ranks at the bottom with 0.604. In Maharashtra, nine districts have been classified as low HDI districts.
