Bihar- Second Fastest Growing State in India

PATNA: Bihar’s turnaround story has now been even vindicated by the Central Statistical Organization (CSO), which has unveiled data to show that Bihar has emerged as the second fastest-growing state in the country. According to the CSO data, Bihar’s GDP grew by an astounding 11.03% in the five-year period between 2004-05 and 2008-09, much more than the national average of 8.49%, and ranked second only to Gujarat, which recorded a growth-rate of 11.05% during the corresponding period.

Such a positive vibe from a central agency has obviously enthused the Bihar government, which, not surprisingly, was even willing to pat its back. “These are certainly good signs for the state economy. It also goes to prove that the initiatives we put in place are yielding results. Things will only improve from here on,’’ Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi told ET.

Dwelling on the enabling factors which accounted for the higher growth-rate, Mr Modi said the state government had made a conscious bid to step its level of plan expenditure and all this led to the execution of development works on a very large scale. “Even for the current fiscal, we have targeted plan expenditure to the tune of over Rs 16,000 crore. During the last fiscal in 2008-09, our level of plan expenditure stood at Rs 12,000 crore. Earlier, before the NDA government took over, the annual performance was dismal to say the least. On an average, the state government of the past could barely spend Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,000 crore’’ Mr Modi remarked.

Drawing a comparison with the RJD government, which barely managed to spend Rs 25,000 crore during its 15-year tenure till 2004-05, the Bihar deputy chief minister said the NDA government has however spent nearly Rs 36,000 crore on the development works during the past four years. “The level of plan expenditure will easily scale up to Rs 51,000 crore if the estimate of the annual plan size of 2009-10 is taken into account,“ claimed the deputy chief minister.
“In the road sector alone, we have targeted investment in the order of Rs 5,000 crore and Rs 10,000 crore for the education sector in the current fiscal,’’ the BJP leader argued..

Taking a dig at the opposition leaders who Mr Modi said were always pointing accusing fingers at the state government, the deputy CM said that the facts are now before them to appraise the performance of the NDA government. “The CSO has clearly stated that growth of Bihar ranks second in the country, only just a wee bit behind Gujarat.

The RJD-LJP and the Congress leaders should at least now study published CSO report so that they should not mislead the people in future’’ he said.