Lieutenant governor Najeeb Jung set to bring Gujarat model to Delhi

Following a 50-minute meeting with PM Narendra Modi on May 28, Delhi’s lieutenant governor Najeeb Jung has decided to implement the ‘Gujarat model’ of governance in the Capital.

Updated on: Jun 5, 2014, 24:46:20 IST

Hindustan Times | By Shishir Gupta, New Delhi

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Following a 50-minute meeting with PM Narendra Modi on May 28, Delhi’s lieutenant governor Najeeb Jung has decided to implement the ‘Gujarat model’ of governance in the Capital. Three big-ticket projects here involving cleaning and development of the Yamuna, solar power generation, and installation of more CCTV cameras will draw from Gujarat’s best practices.

The PM had asked the L-G to examine the Gujarat experience of cleaning the Sabarmati in Ahmedabad, installation of solar power in Gandhinagar, and using public-private partnership for installation of CCTVs in Surat.

Taking the PM’s advice, Jung is sending three teams of top Delhi bureaucrats to study the Gujarat model on June 5-6, according to Raj Bhavan sources.

An eight-member team led by principal secretary (power) Arun Goel is heading for Gandhinagar to study the steps taken by the Gujarat government to generate electricity through solar power. The team includes secretary (irrigation and flood control) Puneet Goel and secretary (environment and forests) Sanjiv Kumar.

Modi had asked Jung to consider the Gandhinagar experience in solar power generation, where the per unit cost has reportedly come down considerably. The PM suggested solar power generation for Delhi after the L-G complained about high-handedness of power distributing companies.

Another seven-member team headed by Delhi Jal Board CEO Vijai Kumar and secretary Sanjiv Kumar will study the Sabarmati River Front Project and suggest how the concept could be used for cleaning and development of the Yamuna. Jung had complained about polluting industries along the Yamuna and requested the PM to link the cleaning of the river to the Ganga project.

A third team headed by special commissioner (operations) Sundari Nanda and two other senior Delhi Police officials is going to Surat to study the city’s surveillance system built with public-private partnership. Jung had requested for around 50,000 CCTVs in the Capital to deter criminals and terrorists. Modi, again, suggested the Surat model.

Jung apparently told the PM the previous government had not installed more CCTVs although it only needed a relatively modest investment of less than Rs. 50 crore. Delhi has about 5,000 CCTVs. This despite rape and security of women being a major issue.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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