Indra’s Drishtikona (Viewpoint)

Bihar’s Economy: Two Queries

Posted : March 22, 2010 at 12:57 pm [IST]

As per the World Bank, India received close to $47 billion as remittances in 2009. These include money sent by relatives abroad for the maintenance of their families back home. Is there a data on how much money Bihar gets as remittances from the immigrants working outside the state? And how does it affect the economy of the state? Can the state government provide the figure?

In a similar manner, we know that Indian citizens paid almost US$3.5 billion as tuition fee to foreign universities and educational institutions around the world. And one of the reasons for Kapil Sibal’s drive to bring in foreign universities in India is to reduce this drainage and to improve the accessibility to good education in the country itself. Can Bihar government provide the data regarding the outgo of the money that the people of Bihar are paying for the education for their children who are to move out of the state for better and higher education? Why could Bihar not open up its education sector and remove all hurdles for investment in education sector so that most of those students going out of the state could study the courses of their choice in the state itself that would have far cheaper for the family of the students?

I wish Bihar government could have focused on educational reforms too and stopped the mass cheating and malpractices in examinations. Politicians and administration would have taken the message of the uselessness of the cheating in examinations. The certificates or its score no longer fetch anything. Employers outside the state rate these certificates very poorly. They conduct their own tests.

Why has Nitish government failed to bring in reform in this area?

Perhaps I am expecting a little too much from a government that takes pride in showing its 8 crore of people out of a total population of 9.4 crore living below poverty line after more than half a century of the democracy and demand the centre to sustain it. And this is not being done by anyone else but the chief minister according to whom more than 80 percent people of Bihar now live below poverty line*.

Will someone on behalf of the government provide me with the answers to my two queries?

*Note: (While the Planning Commission puts the figure at 65.23 lakh BPL families the state government survey now puts the figure at 1.40 crore families. If one family has six members the number of people below poverty line in Bihar is more than eight crore. The total population of Bihar at present is something around 9.40 crore.)

- Indra

Category: Indian politics, Employment/Education |