Gandhinagar, December 8 (IANS). Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel on Monday chaired the second governing body meeting of the Gujarat State Institution for Transformation (GRIT). The meeting laid special emphasis on the central role of GRIT in shaping the long-term development strategy of ‘Vikas Gujarat-2047’ and ‘Gujarat-2035’.
Senior officials including Deputy Chief Minister Harsh Shanghvi, Finance Minister Kanhaiya Desai, Agriculture Minister Jitu Vaghani and Education Minister Dr. Pradyuman Waza were present in the meeting. Before the meeting, the Chief Minister inaugurated the Gujarat Strategy Room developed at the Gandhinagar office of GRIT. This command center is equipped with digital dashboard, research library, KPI tracking and podcast space, which will play a major role in analyzing development indicators and performance of government schemes.
During the meeting, the Chief Minister released the District Domestic Product (DDP) estimates, which is the first initiative of the state planning department. This data will be helpful in making more effective and inclusive development plans at the local level.
Chief Minister Patel said that GRIT has made all departmental and scheme-level data available at one place, which will speed up the decision-making process and make it easier to identify important areas for the future. He appreciated the young GRIT team for establishing the institution as a futuristic think tank in a short period of time.
In the meeting, GRIT CEO S. Aparna presented the organisation’s key projects, which included a policy paper, a sectoral review, 19 publications, three task force reports and the initial framework of the Regional Economic Master Plan. The plan focuses on taking Gujarat towards the goal of creating a $4 trillion economy and 2.8 crore jobs by 2047.
The presentation also included ongoing work on areas such as education, fisheries, post-harvest management, green manufacturing, spatial computing and blue sky policy. Deputy Chief Minister Harsh Shanghvi suggested that GRIT’s data-based system be included in the upcoming state budget preparations, so that departments can plan more effectively.
In the meeting, the Governing Body unanimously supported the commitment of the State Government to establish GRIT as a leading institution in the field of policy research, innovation and good governance.
In the meeting, Chief Secretary M.K. Das, Chief Advisor to the Chief Minister Dr. Hasmukh Adhia, Additional Chief Secretary (Finance) Rajiv Topno, Secretary to the Chief Minister Dr. Vikrant Pandey and Planning Secretary Adra Agarwal were also present.
–IANS
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