Bihar’s growth story: Analysis and future roadmap

Abstract

Bihar has set an example with a massive turnaround in all the sectors by effectively using good governance and management principles. Bihar has been in news for achieving second highest GDP growth rate next to Gujarat. Starting from infrastructure by building high quality road to excellent law and order situation, it has shown exemplary performance. Through this paper, we have tried to identify the challenges for Bihar which existed in 2005 through a World Bank report and few other sources. The challenges identified have been studied in detail through root and cause analysis and broadly classified in to three broad categories: - Governance Issues, Investment Issues and Low state GDP. These broader issues have been further studied in detail by drilling down to minute levels. In the next section of the report, we have tried to analyse the progress of the state in last five years through different statistical figures such as Sector wise GDP analysis. The growth of the state has centred around 4S: - Shiksha (Education), Swashthya (Health), Sushashan (Administration) and Sadak (Road). We have further analysed the state’s performance in these four areas through numbers and primary data input from the residents of Bihar through telephonic interview. Further, we have critically evaluated the reason behind this growth by examining the imperative measures taken by the state. By taking inputs from various officers who are currently working corroborated with the statistical analysis done in the previous section, we have tried to map to these changes to problems identified in the first section. In the last section, the report talks about the challenges still not addressed which may turn out as bottleneck in the growth strategy of the state. At last, we have come up with future roadmap for the state by enlisting some recommendations that the state government should do going forward.