In reponse to article Bihar's growth Miracle

Apropos of the article Bihar's Growth article" published on 28th feb 2010. [ http://www.bihartimes.com/Newsbihar/2010/Feb/Newsbihar28Feb3.html]

Below is my analysis of the article which got published as comment in Bihar Times.
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Rome was not built in a day nor will be Bihar.

I congratulate you Mr. Bhattacharya for coming out with such a bold and illusionary article either with an intention to disparage the credentials of a Bihar or to gain political mileage by showing the other politician “ Nitish” down.
Generally conclusion follows research. However, in your article it seems that you formed ex-ante notion of performance of Bihar accordingly fed statistics as per need to meet the malicious objective.

No I’m not supporting that the miracle was brought completely by Nitish and Bihar as a whole performed well. At the same time the picture portrayed of Bihar by you too seems to be pregnant with mala fide intentions. The accuracy of 11% doesn’t matter much to me what was more important was there a serious effort of Biharis to grow the state economy.

Below is my analysis based on the article mentioned:

1) CSO is the central body in India maintaining all statistics. In order to arrive at your analysis I’m sure you’ve dig the figures from CSO or any other source whose ultimate source was CSO.
Then why is that data related to rosy picture of Bihar “alone” is blamed to be tainted? Sir, you’re not attacking your political rival Nitish’s work rather you are giving a bad face to Bihar’s economic growth which you know would hit inbound investment. Which should not happen intentionally or unintentionally when this changed image is really needed by this state?

2) Your statement that the NSDP of Bihar is paltry again to me sounds ridiculous. We know that Bihar doesn’t have industries which drive the economy. Now most of the bread earners are not living in Bihar. GSDP of Bihar is not capturing the accurate receipt of all the income generated by the Biharis. People like me is drawing salary and filing return in other state which certainly is not getting captured in GSDP of Bihar rather in other state. Above all Bihar has more unorganized sector as compared to other state which results in under-reporting of receipt of income.

It is not important that GSDP is low as compared with other state which certainly will be due to several years of mis-governance. What is more important is that in spite of all odds Bihar dared to grow from Rs. 66,040 crore in 2004 to nearly Rs. 1,19,443 crore in 2008–09.

3) Noted your point that there was stagnation in agriculture during 2005-06 because of which growth seemed brilliant. However, there also was Koshi crisis, less cold storage and blight in potato, these problems were not with Maharasthra, Gujarat or Pondicherry. A state which is depended on agriculture and 1,20,000 hectares of land went under water affecting 22 districts apart from other problems mentioned supra. If Bihar still manages a GSDP growth from 66,040 crore in 2004 to nearly Rs. 1,19,443 crore in 2008–09 it is simply commendable.

Besides, if 1,20,000 hectares went under water and agriculture still manages to grow 4.5% must have come from higher productivity ( i.e higher crop coming from decreased arable land). I salute the Bihari farmers for giving extra-ordinary performance and boosting productivity at a time when it was most needed.

4) I admit and admire centre’s role in construction of Bihar but I cannot comment whether central assistance to Bihar as compared to other state was higher, as the article is silent of similar centre’s assistance given to other state. May be statistics was not supporting your ill-conceived theory.

However I was going through economic survey of Bihar which states that in Bihar, the total road length in 2008 was 82,959 kms. which constituted National Highways (4.50 percent). For the sake of repetition, merely 4.5% of NH is in Bihar.

Were national highways, bridges in other state made without central allocation? The statement that Bihar grew of because of central assistance cannot be held to be conclusive.

5) We are a learned people and let’s not find taboo in liquor industry as long as it bring growth and is a source of employment. And mind it every protest of people is not reasonable simply because a bunch of people think in a different way it doesn’t make them right.6) Now few statistics from Economic survey of Bihar FY 2008-09 which seems you overlooked while doing research which I believe is worth mentioning.

a) Among all States and union territories, Bihar with a crime rate of 118 stood at 28th position in the country. There has been a sharp decline of around 50 percent or more in the cases of dacoity, kidnapping, road dacoity and bank robbery in 2008 over 2001. Pondicherry of which you were boosting in this article topped the rank of highest number of crime followed by Chandigarh.

b) The number of motor vehicles in Bihar has increased by 239 percent in 2007.

c) The total number of GSM subscribers in November 2008 registered a phenomenal increase to 1.24 crore, compared to only 9.70 lakh subscribers in 2004-05.

Let’s assume for the time being that Bihar didn’t do well and it’s performance is mere statistical illusion even then I congratulate Bihar for marketing it’s economic growth out of nothing and compelled economists across India to discuss this case.
My intention is not to communicate that Bihar performed exceptionally well but to pin point that it was not as bad as portrayed by the you Sir.

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Disclaimer: I've tried my best to include the correct facts and statistics. However, readers are discouraged from quoting this anywhere and apply their intelligence. Kindly also go through the disclaimer of blog which applies here