Monday, December 8

GRIT’s second governing body meeting charts road map for ‘Viksit Gujarat’

Gandhinagar, Dec 8 (IANS) Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel on Monday chaired the second meeting of the Governing Body of the Gujarat State Institution for Transformation (GRIT), underscoring the think tank’s central role in shaping the state’s long-term development agenda, including Viksit Gujarat @2047 and Gujarat @2035.

The meeting, attended by Deputy Chief Minister Harsh Sanghavi, Finance Minister Kanu Desai, Agriculture Minister Jitu Vaghani and Education Minister Dr. Pradyuman Vaja, reviewed GRIT’s progress 15 months after its formation. Ahead of the meeting, the Chief Minister inaugurated the newly-developed Viksit Gujarat Strategy Room at GRIT’s Gandhinagar office.

Equipped with digital dashboards, a research library, KPI-tracking systems and a podcast space, the room will serve as the state’s central command for analysing development indicators, evaluating scheme performance and monitoring progress towards the 2047 goals.

During the meeting, the CM released District Domestic Product (DDP) Estimates, a first-of-its-kind initiative by the state’s Planning Department. The data is expected to significantly improve local-level planning, enabling more targeted, inclusive and sustainable district development strategies.

The Chief Minister said that GRIT has already made all departmental and scheme-level data accessible in one place — a tool that will accelerate decision-making and help identify focus areas critical to Gujarat’s long-term vision.

He praised the young GRIT team for establishing the institution as a future-focussed think tank in a short span.

GRIT CEO S. Aparna presented an overview of the institution’s major projects, including policy papers, sectoral reviews, 19 publications, three task-force implementation reports and the early framework of a Regional Economic Master Plan aimed at steering Gujarat toward a $4 trillion economy and creating 28 million jobs by 2047.

The presentation also covered ongoing work across education, fisheries, post-harvest management, green manufacturing, spatial computing and the Blue Sky Policy initiative. Harsh Sanghavi suggested integrating GRIT’s data systems into the upcoming state budget preparations, enabling departments to plan more effectively.

The Governing Body unanimously endorsed the state government’s commitment to positioning GRIT as a premier institution for forward-looking policy research, innovation and governance transformation.

Top officials — including Chief Secretary M.K. Das, CM’s Chief Advisor Dr. Hasmukh Adhia, Additional Chief Secretary (Finance) Rajiv Topno, CM’s Secretary Dr. Vikrant Pandey and Planning Secretary Aadra Agrawal — were present at the review meeting.

–IANS

janvi/rad