Marathi Mansa Jaga Ho !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Maharashtra get out of your slumber)
Sunday is normally a day of reading, when one can really scan newspapers at leisure.
While going through one of the dailies I found a comparative analysis of different states.
It argued that normally in case of nations poor nations grow faster and catch up with the rich ones. But in case of Indian states the phenomena is reversed, laggards are lagging more & more while richer states(read southern) are growing faster.

The fact that shocked me to core was that Maharshtra and Bihar had the same average growth rate in per capita income for last 10 years.

Till my childhood I used to hear with pride that Maharashtra is the most industrialized state, rich farmers, good irrigation, power rich and supplying to neighbours. But within 10 years myopic leaders who just could’nt look beyond their tenure, brought it in the league of one of the worst off states in India.

It’s not the case that Maharashtra was good in manufacturing but could’nt survive in Service era. Pune & Bangalore were at the same status at the start of 90’s, while Karnataka and their entrepreuners really saw a sunrise opportunity, Maharashtra just allowed it to pass like any other wave. Thus we have an eyewash, Bangalore exports 6 billion $, Pune (1 billion $). Even now almost all the 2 tier cities of Maharashtra like Nagpur, Nasik, Aurangabad etc have all the factors necessary for becoming a IT hotspot i.e cheap real estate& large number of graduate colleges for manpower. But while Mysore, Coimbatore,Vizag,Noida,Chandigarh,& Gurgaon are buzzing with activity, these cities look sleepy and devoid of any activity.

The archaic tax laws (M.H is the only one still collecting Octroi) have hollowed out manufacturing and Gujarat has grown on it’s expense( look at Vapi & Ankaleshwar.)
Labour unions are equally responsible for this fate (Datta Samant !!!!!!!!!).

No need to comment about BSP (Bijli, Sadak & Pani).

Hope we get out of this slumber and once again sing “Jai-Jai Maharashtra Mazha”