Beyond The Hype: Bihar's Caste Survey Diverts Attention From Its Long-persisting Socio-economic Woes

The Bihar government under Chief Minister Nitish Kumar recently introduced a caste survey, carried out over a period of four months, 92 years after they were last set forth.

The results show that Extremely Backward Classes (EBC) constitute 36.01 per cent of the population of Bihar, the rest being Other Backward Classes (OBC) at 27.12 per cent, Scheduled Castes (SC) at 19.65 per cent, Scheduled Tribes (ST) at 1.68 per cent, and General Category at 15.52 per cent share of the population.

The caste survey comes at a time when the nation gears up for the Lok Sabha election next year, with the current Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government facing opposition from the grand coalition “I.N.D.I.A.,” comprising Janata Dal (United), Rashtriya Janata Dal, Congress, and other left alliance parties.

But what this caste survey really does is, it diverts attention from Bihar’s economy, and the fact that it still fares poorly in social indicators of development when compared to the national average.

Bihar's Economic Situation

India’s reformation story began in 1991, propelling many states to relative prosperity, but not Bihar.

Bihar’s per-capita state gross domestic product (GDP) was Rs 2,660 in 1990-91, while India’s per-capita net national income was Rs 5,365.

For comparison, the per-capita state GDP of Tamil Nadu in 1990-91 was Rs 4,938.

In 2004-05, while India’s per-capita income stood at Rs 24,143, Tamil Nadu raced ahead to Rs 30,062, whereas Bihar’s per-capita state GDP was only Rs 7,914.

It can be noticed easily that Bihar’s per-capita state GDP fell from 49 per cent of India’s per-capita income in 1990-91 to 33 per cent in 2004-05.

In 2019-20, Bihar’s per-capita state GDP was Rs 46,664, remaining stagnant at 34 per cent of India’s per-capita income, which stood at Rs 1.34 lakh, while Tamil Nadu had a per-capita state GDP of Rs 2.18 lakh.

This low economic growth should not come as a surprise, though.

A study conducted by Dr Shamika Ravi and Dr Mudit Kapoor has found that the average growth rate of Bihar has been a measly 3.9 per cent in the period 1990-2019, while the national average growth rate was 4.5 per cent in the same period.

More shocking is that Bihar was the only state in India that had a negative average growth rate between 1990 and 1999, managing to have an average growth rate of (-)0.4 per cent when the national average growth rate was 3.9 per cent.

The revenue composition of Bihar between 1990 and 2020 shows that the state has a greater reliance on shares in central taxes or grants from the centre, collecting less than 40 per cent of its revenue from its own state tax revenue.

On the other hand, its per-capita expenditure is significantly below the all-India level of Rs 14,606.

Social Spends

Expenditure is composed of development expenditure and non-development expenditure.

Bihar’s revenue expenditure on social service sectors like water and sanitation is also nothing to write home about, remaining the same since 2018.

Data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) shows that expenditure on development of the water and sanitation sector in 2018 was Rs 2,338.36 crore, while the budget allocation for the sector in 2023 is Rs 2,637.70 crore.

Bihar’s growth in expenditure on social security and welfare in 2015 was Rs 4,311.25 crore, rising to an expenditure allocation of Rs 7,208.71 crore in 2023.

Let us compare Bihar’s expenditure with another state, say, Tamil Nadu.

Tamil Nadu’s expenditure on social security and welfare in 2015 stood at Rs 8,702.85 crore, which further rose to an expenditure allocation of Rs 12,046.59 crore in 2023.

Persisting Unemployment

While Bihar's economic health continues to be troublesome, another issue that remains unresolved is the state’s unemployment rate.

When Nitish Kumar came to power in 2005, unemployment in Bihar was worrisome. The state had the highest unemployment rate in India at the time.

As per reports of 2004-05, the unemployment rate of Bihar was 0.8 times the all-India unemployment rate. Moreover, only a mere 4.2 per cent of Bihar’s population had salaried jobs in 2004-05.

However, 15 years after Kumar took over, the unemployment issue has remained in the state.

In 2018-19, 10.4 per cent of Bihar's population had salaried jobs. In 2022, Bihar became the third state with the highest unemployment rate of 18.8 per cent, preceded only by Jammu and Kashmir, with the highest unemployment rate of 20.02 per cent, and Rajasthan, with 19.1 per cent.

When we compare the unemployment figures to other states with similar economic health, we find that Bihar, unfortunately, has a higher unemployment rate than the 2 per cent unemployment rate of Madhya Pradesh, 3.7 per cent of Assam, 0.9 per cent of Odisha, 13 per cent of Tripura, and 14 per cent of Jharkhand.

Notably, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Odisha are states where the government has not changed in the past 20 years. Despite having a stable government, Bihar still fares poorly relative to the other two.

Development Performance

Another area of concern for Bihar is its poor performance in human development indicators.

Bihar had the worst human development index between 1990 and 2005. The state failed to fulfill its sustainable development goals, on top of having a shambolic healthcare system.

The two waves of Covid-19 also exposed the shortcomings of the healthcare network; the Bihar government failed to provide adequate healthcare infrastructure and employ sufficient doctors to cater to the treatment of the patients.

Additionally, the State of India’s Environment Report 2022 named Bihar as the worst-performing state in terms of eradicating poverty and hunger, improving the quality of education, industry innovation, and climate action.

Bihar’s poverty record also screams for attention. Even after 15 years at the helm, the situation has not improved much compared to when Chief Minister Kumar took over in 2004-05.

As per NITI Aayog’s Multidimensional Index 2021, Bihar emerged as the poorest state in India with a poverty rate of 51.9 per cent, compared to 54.5 per cent in 2004-05.

The education space in Bihar is no different. The state continues to have the lowest literacy rate despite improvements. The literacy rate increased from 61 per cent in 2011 to 79.7 per cent in 2022 — with male literacy rate at 60.5 per cent and female literacy rate at 70.9 per cent.

These figures are still less in comparison to other states.

Though the literacy rate of Bihar was marginally higher than the national literacy rate of 77.7 per cent, it is still low in comparison to other poor states, like Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, and Assam, all of them registering more than 80 per cent literacy rate.

Bihar’s fertility rate of 3 continues to remain the highest among other states. The national fertility rate stood at 2, as of 2021.

When compared to the fertility rates in other states, Bihar again exceeded states like Uttar Pradesh at 2.4, Madhya Pradesh at 1.8, and Tamil Nadu at 2.

Additionally, Bihar’s urban population fertility rate of 2.4 and rural population fertility rate of 3.1 exceeded the rates in those same states.

Therefore, while the Bihar government, with its introduction of the caste survey, has argued that the survey would allow for targeted welfare measures, it says nothing about the rut at the centre of governance in Bihar.