A regional bias seems to have become in-built in Gujarat's industrial growth, if a recent Industries department dossier is anything to go by. The document has highlighted two big dark spots- Saurashtra and north Gujarat – that are almost missing the investment bus, and a chance for equitable growth.

Of the Rs 3,36,260 crore worth of medium and large investments, a mere 2.5 per cent has gone to north Gujarat – Chief Minister Narendra Modi's home region. Saurashtra, minus Jamnagar and Kutch, has managed a little over 8 per cent of the total. The eastern tribal belt solely depends on government programmes with little in the name of industrial projects, the dossier said.

The figures are part of an internal Industries Department dossier that profiles Gujarat's industrial growth over the last decade and reflect a pattern of investment that favours traditional regions like the Ahmedabad-Surat Golden corridor (which corners 46 per cent of the total investments), or the Gulf of Kutch, which with its Jamnagar and Kutch districts, account for 41 per cent of the total.

The document shows that of the 5,067 projects commissioned in the state till September 2007, central and south Gujarat has cornered 3,557 projects worth Rs 79,427 crore, while Saurashtra minus Kutch and Jamnagar has barely managed Rs 7,633 crore of investment in 431 projects. North Gujarat has received 634 projects for Rs 6,984 crore.

Of the total investments in medium and large projects commissioned or under implementation, the districts of Jamnagar and Kutch attracted Rs 52,208 crore and Rs 88,147 crore respectively.

According to the dossier, the huge figures are owing to the single chunk investments of Reliance and Mundra SEZs accounting for greater part of the total.

In another interesting set of figures revealed by the document, of the 51 Special Economic Zones (SEZ) approved so far for the state, only two are in Saurashtra (Amreli), while north Gujarat gets seven – all in Gandhinagar. The rest 42 SEZs are in Jamnagar (2), Kutch (12), and the Golden corridor (28).