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Patna,(BiharTimes): Notwithstanding tall claims by the Nitish Kumar government the Planning Commission data released on Monday suggests that the number of poor in Bihar has increased by 50 lakh (five millions) in the five years period between 2004-05 and 2009-10. Thus the state added the largest number of poor in the country. If 53.5% of Bihar was under the poverty line in 2009-10, the figure was 54.4% in 2004-5. |
 Nitish Kumar became the chief minister on November 24, 2005 and the Planning Commission figure put a great question mark before the tall claims of growth of 11 per cent in this same period. The latest report on poverty suggests that there is nothing for Bihar to boast about, in fact in some criteria things have gone from bad to worse.
Number & Percentage of Population below poverty line(BPL) in Bihar
Year |
Rural |
Urban |
Total |
% of Persons |
No. of Persons(lakhs) |
% of Persons |
No. of Persons(lakhs) |
% of Persons |
No. of Persons(lakhs) |
2004-05 |
55.7 |
451 |
43 |
42.8 |
54.4 |
493.8 |
2009-10 |
55.3 |
498.7 |
39.4 |
44.8 |
53.5 |
543.5 |
Source: Planning Commission
Experts like Prof Nawal Kishore Chaudhary of Patna University have repeatedly been questioning the data provided by the state government on growth rate every year.
With 56.5% the poverty ratio for Muslims in urban Bihar is highest in the country whereas in rural Bihar and Chhattisgarh, nearly two-thirds of SCs and STs are poor. In states such as Manipur, Orissa and Uttar Pradesh the poverty ratio for these groups is more than half.
Official economists like Shaibal Gupta have repeatedly been stating that reduction of poverty is brought about by agricultural transformation, but Bihar’s growth was construction-centric. The counter question then asked by other experts is why is there decline in the growth in agriculture sector in the last five-six years when the performance was relatively better in the much maligned Lalu-Rabri regime (March 10, 1990 to March 7, 2005).
Shaibal Gupta concedes that construction-based growth does not address the problems of poverty in a constructive manner. However, he is still hopeful and said that the state government is in the process of chalking out a techno-managerial strategy to bring about a Green Revolution.
But independent experts and academics are sceptical as the situation is turning from bad to worse in the agrarian sector. In fact Bihar, according to the state government figure, witnessed about 25 per cent decline in the area under irrigation in this period.
Apart from Bihar the BJP ruled Chhattisgarh and till recently BSP ruled Uttar Pradesh too saw almost negligible decline in poverty though these two states too made claims of high growth rate in the recent years.
Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have between them 128 million (12.8 crore) poor. This is over a third of all the poor of the country and roughly 10 per cent of the world's poor.
In five small states––Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland––too the proportion of poor as well as the absolute number has risen. Nagaland’s performance being by far the worst. The proportion of people living below the poverty line has more than doubled over five years here––rising from 8.8% in 2004-5 to 20.9% in 2009-10. The rise in poverty in North-East is alarming and MPs raised the issue of poverty in Parliament on Tuesday.
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