In Charts | How Shivraj Singh Chouhan was marred by inflation, slowed growth, but scored in employment

Madhya Pradesh Elections 2023:

Madhya Pradesh's incumbent state government led by BJP’s Shivraj Singh Chouhan has had to battle party factionalism and anti-incumbency amid a widening fiscal deficit, high inflation, and persistent poverty leading up to the Assembly elections. The state has also lagged in generating investments.

Here’s a snapshot of the economy of Madhya Pradesh in charts.

The state’s gross domestic product growth slowed in the previous financial year. Although Madhya Pradesh’s economy grew in double digits in FY22 on the back of a favourable base effect after the pandemic, it failed to retain that momentum in FY23.

Madhya Pradesh has largely managed to keep a lid on its fiscal deficit. However, the gap is gradually widening. It reached 3.6 percent of the GSDP in FY23 compared with 3.3 percent a year before. The state’s fiscal deficit is estimated in the budget at 4 percent of GSDP in FY24, breaching the 3.5 percent limit set in the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act.

On a positive note, the state has a low unemployment rate, as per data from the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS). The unemployment rate stood at 1.6 percent in FY23, lower than the national figure of 3.2 percent.

However, 20.6 percent of the population in Madhya Pradesh lived under multidimensional poverty – a measure that reflects deprivations that poor people face in education, health, and living standards, apart from money. The state is ranked fourth in India by the share of the population living in poverty.

Although per capita income in Madhya Pradesh has risen, it remains less than the national average. The state’s per capita income was estimated to be Rs 63,345 in FY22, which was lower than the national average of Rs 91,481.

The state also deals with high inflation rates, which have remained consistently above the national average since FY19. Consumer prices rose 6.2 percent in the state in FY22, while the national average was 5.5 percent.

Although known as an agrarian state, the manufacturing sector grew the most in Madhya Pradesh in FY22, followed by agriculture and the services sector. This was after both services and manufacturing contracted 4.8 percent and 4.5 percent, respectively, during the pandemic in FY21, while agriculture expanded 5.2 percent.

There were 2,515 recognised startups in the state in 2022, the 12th-highest in the country, according to the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT). These startups employed 26,260 people. Maharashtra topped the list with the highest number of startups at 15,571, which employed 163,451 people.

Madhya Pradesh has struggled to attract investments. Gross industrial capital formation in the state was worth Rs 17,376.7 crore in FY20, placing it in eighth position among the 10 most populous states in India.

The digital divide remains wide in Madhya Pradesh. Almost half of the state doesn’t have access to the internet. The teledensity in the state was 51.41 percent, lower than the national average.

In terms of Union government schemes, Madhya Pradesh opened 42.56 million bank accounts through the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana. This is the fourth-highest figure in the country. Only Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal have opened more Jan Dhan accounts, and all three states are more populous than Madhya Pradesh.

As many as 8.23 million people in the state availed of cooking gas connections through the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana. This corresponds to 11.3 percent of the population, as per Census 2011. According to the National Family Health Survey 2019-21 (NFHS-5), 60 percent of the households in the state don't use clean fuels for cooking.

The Ladli Behna Yojana is the flagship scheme of the state government under which women get Rs 1,000 per month as financial assistance. The scheme covers married, widowed, divorced, or abandoned women aged 23-60. The beneficiaries must not be taxpayers or have permanent employment, and their family income should not exceed Rs 2.5 lakh per annum.

The Mukhyamantri Kisan Kalyan Yojana provides income support to farmers in the state. The state government gives about 7.1 million farmers Rs 6,000 per annum. Considering that they also get Rs 6,000 a year under the central Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi, farmers in Madhya Pradesh get a total of Rs 12,000 annually as financial assistance.