Gujarat is really heaven By Mattia Michielan

BANGALORE—In a bid to woo investment from Karnataka, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, accompanied by a team of high-level business leaders and government officials from his state, spoke to entrepreneurs during a visit to the city today.

Gujarat, which produces 98 percent of soda in India and almost the 80 percent of salt, has been growing steadily and is among the most prosperous states in the country.

"Gujarat is a very vibrant state," said Balasubramanian Viswanathan, the managing director of the Bangalore-based Helpman Technologies.

"For an entrepreneur, it is really heaven," he said, mentioning that his company would want to invest in Gujarat.

Bangalore's entrepreneurs said that they are particularly attracted to absence of red tape in Gujarat's bureaucracy.

"The way things work in Gujarat is very transparent," Vishwanathan said.
"We are mainly focusing on management education," said Dr. Hari Krishna Maram, director of the Imperial College, which has offices in Bangalore and Colombo.

With plans to expand in Gujarat, Maram said that he wanted to invest in e-learning schools in that state. The idea, he said, was to combat the high dropout rate at the grade twelve.
He attributed the rising dropout rate to an increasing number of students opting to start their own businesses, instead of choosing to study.

Gujarat's transparent bureaucracy, according to Maram, would give him the opportunity to start a new school with a different outlook on education.
"There's a big gap between educational institutions and the industrial world and our institute works with the aim to fill this gap," he said.

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