दृष्टिकोण – Indra's Viewpoint

Bihar is India’s new miracle economy. It was one of the main news headlines on the front page of Sunday Times of India. Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar’s column in Economic Times was the reason for this headline.

If I go by my inbox e-mails, the news has excited many well-wishers of Bihar. I did also get a kick. Only recently I had gone through some articles based on the panel discussion organized by Business Standard Hindi in Patna that had made me morose and so I wrote ‘Bihar’s Bad Luck’. Let us see what Aiyar says:

“The best news comes from Bihar, historically the biggest failure. From 2004-05 to2008-09, Bihar averaged 11.03% growth annually. It was virtually India’s fastest growing state, on par with Gujarat (11.05%). That represents a sensational turnaround. Nitish Kumar deserves an award for the most inclusive revolution of the decade.”

I have also gone through the recently published progress report for the last four years of Nitish rule. As usual, that is so poorly drafted by the babus that one hardly gets enthused to complete it. Why can’t the officers who go to all sorts of management training bring some freshening changes in their presentations and working?

The state will have the next election for the state assembly this year itself. Lalu and Ram Vilas are camping in Patna and consistently teasing and obstructing Nitish to make the people of Bihar notice their presence. Will Aiyar’s certificate matter in bringing the election result in Nitish’s favour? I doubt as it will hardly reach to those who matter in these elections.

However, the news will certainly help in changing the image of Bihar overall. Nitish has certainly worked hard to reach the people. His achievements have been many. I have been regularly writing about my expectations. But I wonder why Nitish doesn’t involve the people more. Why can’t he appeal to the rich business people of India to help him in providing education facilities, say at least 100 Higher Secondary Schools and 50 engineering and medical colleges, even if necessary on their terms in Bihar? Why can’t he involve the educationists of the state to scale up the quantity of intake and the quality of teaching in its existing science and commerce colleges? Some of them might wish to become entrepreneurs themselves. If it can be a lucrative business in other states, why can’t it be so in Bihar? I am sure some in his government itself are not the obstructionists. I wish he would have wound up different state school boards and got all schools affiliated to central boards to bring better equity at national level.

I would have loved to see a healthcare centre in any of the village- my own, maternal one or one from where my wife comes. I myself and my sons in US would have loved to contribute as much as we could. In my own village, I would have given my land for it. I can also contribute the investment required for a Knowledge Centre with computer and Internet facilities on pattern of ITC’s e-choupal for my village. But there is no such initiative at work.

But I am really happy with the findings of Mr. Aiyar. It certainly highlights that Bihar has a huge potential to get out from its laggard status. And the industrialists must come forward and invest there. Nitish must get his due reward and the people must elect him again and not the suspect black sheep.

And as Aiyar wishes, ‘Let us celebrate the emergence of Bihar’ and pray that Bihar gets it due from centres and business community to make it a respectable and prosperous state.

Yesterday I happened to talk to Alok, my cousin in village. I wanted to know about the health of my uncle. And he informed that uncle was in other village, Samahuta where cycles were getting distributed to students of Girls High School. I felt good. Nitish government has done good work on rural roads. At least, the girls will use the cycles.

As it appears, the next state assembly election is pretty near. All the news reports from the state indicate that. Each of the troika is busy in doing everything to grab the state or at least to remain relevant in state politics.

While incumbency may be against Nitish, his performance in the last four years has made a big change in perception of Bihar in the country and makes him the best choice for the next time too. The Bihar government has come out with its exhaustive performance report of the last four years that it completed on November 24, 2009 on PatnaDaily.com today. The reports are in part I, II, and III and present pretty rosy picture. I don’t how many will go through it and will it influence the people who matter in the next election. It is a special edition with Nitish portrait on cover and declaring him as Person of the Year- 2009.

Unfortunately, even with a real improvement in law and order confirmed by many independent observers, Bihar has failed to attract significant number of big private entrepreneurs. Nitish thinks without the centre granting the status of “special category state” to Bihar with exemption of taxes, it will not be possible. Even the hope of revival of sugar industry is almost dead: “There just isn’t enough sugarcane to feed the mills, investors say. Set up the mills and the sugarcane will follow you, Kumar counters.”

Unfortunately, even with a real improvement in law and order confirmed by many independent observers, Bihar has failed to attract significant number of big private entrepreneurs. Nitish thinks without the centre granting the status of “special category state” to Bihar with exemption of taxes, it will not be possible. Shaibal Gupta, Economist and Member Secretary, Asian Development Research Institute, Patna endorses the view. Even the hope of revival of sugar industry is almost dead: “There just isn’t enough sugarcane to feed the mills, investors say. Set up the mills and the sugarcane will follow you, Kumar counters.” Some suggests that Bihar will have to look for its own entrepreneurs for investments. Is it prudent? Could Bengal get entrepreneurs even with better indigenous resources of raw materials and trained labour till Buddha took some personal initiatives? Interestingly, according an industry estimates, local entrepreneurs have invested close to Rs 1,500 crore in the recent past. But Bihar needs huge investment and it can come only from the bigger established houses.

Perhaps for the first time Business Standard has published some pretty balanced views on Bihar’s problems in its issue of January 2, 2010, based on a roundtable discussion arranged by its Hindi edition. The centre has been negligent to Bihar. And for many of its ills, it must take responsibility. And TN Ninan has been very forthright: “It is not possible to solve the problems of Bihar by forcing Biharis to go to Mumbai; they need options in their own state. Once again, it is public policy that has failed. The surprising truth is that fiscal transfers from the Centre to the states have worked against the poorest states; if Maharashtra got the same per capita fiscal transfers that Bihar did, the story in that state would have been the same as in Bihar (as the Thackerays should be told). As in so many other things, the starting point has to be public investment.”

Lalu and Ramvilash have been busy only in negative politics. Even during the period when both were senior ministers in the UPA-I, they did anything concrete to pull up the fortunes of unfortunate people of Bihar. None of their projects is going to see daylight. Discarded by Congress after the 2009 parliamentary election when they lost the mandate from the people of the state, they reached Patna and started making the life of Nitish miserable. I am sure they could have done some positive work with so big a following. At least, they would have taken intensive tour of the state and convinced the people to send their children to schools. But as I understand, they wish to keep them ignorant as that can only help them.

But Nitish with all the good work done can’t escape my criticism.

Unfortunately, Nitish lacks good advisors, and has fewer aggressive implementers in his team.