By Ashraf Padanna/Thiruvananthapuram

Kerala has replaced Gujarat as India’s best performing state, according to a survey.

The Congress Party-led southern state has surpassed the national average substantially in all key growth areas, according to the survey by weekly magazine India Today.

Gujarat, ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party, has fallen to a distant fourth from its position as the best state rated by the magazine in 2012.

Andhra Pradesh, also a Congress-ruled state, and Tamil Nadu, ruled by the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham, were second and third respectively.

The Gujarat model of fast-track development is the trump card that its Chief Minister and the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, plays in the run-up to general elections due by May next year.

The survey found that Kerala, which was in the second position in 2012 and ninth in 2011, surged ahead in the growth of gross domestic product (GDP), education, human development, capital expenditure and consumer market.

Referring to a debate between Nobel laureate Amartya Sen who criticised the Gujarat model for not being inclusive, and economists Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya who attributed Kerala’s growth to globalisation of the state’s economy and the huge inflow of diaspora remittances, the magazine said all agreed that the southern state succeeded in both growth and equity.

While Kerala achieved 10% growth in GDP, which is three percentage points higher than the national average, the survey says, it had a 30% rise in capital expenditure against the all-India average of just 5%.

“The state, which has been topping the country in per capita consumption expenditure for the past few years, saw a 35% increase in people owning two-wheelers against the national figure of 15%,” it says.