It is evident that the otherwise fast growing state of Bihar lags far behind in many of the critical human development indicators. The benefit of the base effect is giving a high growth rate to the state. What is important is that the focus of the state policy needs to shift to human development

Vivek Sharma

Bihar’s success story has been hitting headlines very frequently in the recent past. The story going around in various sections of the media is that Bihar is the fastest growing state of the country, even outperforming traditionally fast growing states like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. This fact gets substantiated in the recent Economic Survey. In the Economic Survey (2011-12) presented in the Parliament, it has been mentioned that in 2011-12 Bihar’s GDP grew at a rate of 16.71% which is just double of Gujarat that grew at 8.20%. The Survey also mentions that the growth in Bihar during the period of 2005-06 to 2011-12 was 10.17%, higher than Gujarat once again (refer to the data in the table below).The per capita income growth in Bihar was also 15.44% which sounds impressive by any standard. While on the growth front Bihar’s performance has been terrific without doubt,...

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