The Patna Paradox: How The Capital Became An Isle Of Progress In The Sea Of Stalled Bihar

It has been 20 years since Bihar started to emerge from the darkness of the Jungle Raj era. Nitish Kumar ushered in some big-bang reforms at the administrative and governance levels.

The state has seen rapid transformation in connectivity, rural electricity, tap water, and other facilities, which contribute to the overall Human Development Index (HDI). Simultaneously, Patna, its capital, has also grown manifold in these years. The city, once known for its post-dusk fear factor, has transformed into a bustling urban nest.

Sprawling flyovers, underpasses, a new bus stand, a double-decker bridge, multiple flyovers, a marine drive, and an under-construction metro highlight its transport infrastructure. This stands in contrast to other parts of the state, which are often in the news for collapsing bridges, giving rise to a social media meme fest.

In health, the city boasts hospitals such as Big Apollo Spectra Hospitals, Jay Prabha Medanta Super Speciality Hospital Patna, Paras HMRI Patna, Patna Medical College & Hospital (PMCH), Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS), and AIIMS Patna, among others.

However, the lacunae make more headlines than these achievements. For instance, while the city receives patients from across Eastern India, poor management and overload are literally killing people in PMCH.

Similarly, anyone walking on the roads in Patna will testify to the fact that dust due to perennial construction, repair, and digging, compounded by long hours of traffic, is affecting their eyesight.

The common trope one could resort to is that these issues are part and parcel of any developing (or even developed) city. This generalisation hides the fact that the Bihar government had avenues, time, and even momentum on its side, but it missed the bus. The consequences faced by Patna’s citizens are now a by-product of a haphazard race to catch up.

The historical glory, geographical boon and decline

Patna has a long and glorious history of serving as the nucleus of power since ancient times. Its documented history of 2,500 years includes Megasthenes’ description of it as the ‘greatest city on earth’. From being a powerful centre in the ancient world to serving as one of the hubs of water-bound international trade during the British period, Patna has seen many ups, and downs such as being named Azimabad by one of Aurangzeb’s sons.

What made Patna stand apart is its geography, inseparable from its rivers.

The most prominent among them is the multipurpose Ganga River, which not only caters to drinking, agricultural, and transportation needs, but also carries immense cultural and religious significance, with well-known ghats like Gandhi Ghat, Kali Ghat, and Collectorate Ghat lining its banks.

The celebrated river flows eastward through the heart of the city and largely serves as its lifeline and new tourist hotspot.

It is joined by the Sone River, one of its major southern tributaries from the southwest. The Sone meets the Ganga near Maner, just west of Patna, and has historically been important for irrigation and navigation in the region.

From the northwest, the Gandak River flows in from Nepal and merges with the Ganga near Hajipur, a city situated just north of Patna.

To the south of Patna flows the Punpun River, a smaller yet significant river that joins the Ganga near Fatuha. Although modest in size, the Punpun is known for causing seasonal flooding in southern parts of the city during the monsoon.

Ganga to the north, Punpun to the south, Sone to the west, and Gandak to the northeast provide Patna with a natural encirclement having a mild slope from north to south. These features give Patna a saucer-shaped topographical and hydrological profile, making it hard to flush out water during rains.

Key areas like Rajendra Nagar, Ramakrishna Nagar, Kankarbagh, and Boring Road are vulnerable during these seasons.

Describing one such situation during the Emergency era, senior journalist Sankarshan Thakur, currently serving as Editor of The Telegraph, wrote, "The worst of the flood came after the flood receded. Patna had been rendered a muddy bog-pit strewn with mangled junk and animal carcasses. Everywhere stank of live decay. The only relief on it was the pungent pervasiveness of DDT, the post-flood talcum Patna came to sprinkle itself liberally with."

The flooding and related municipal problems were worsened by post-1960s political instability, lawlessness, and institutional decay.

Until 2005, when Nitish Kumar arrived on the scene, the only positive aspect in Patna was that it served as the administrative centre of the state, a feature which overshadowed its geographical location having the same characteristics.

It would not be an oversimplification to state that after the decline of Patna as a river trade powerhouse, thanks to the introduction of railways, the city never witnessed a decade of sustained development.

Its status as the capital city, housing bureaucratic power centres, only brought some pockets of institutional and infrastructure development, but they were never part of a long-term, coordinated development push.

The decadence of Jungle Raj between 1990 and 2005 only added salt to the wounds of the already dilapidated state capital. Officers seeking central deputation, journalists either becoming the state’s extended apparatus or getting killed, was the norm. A senior YouTuber’s father is well-known for coordinating corruption in the Patna Secretariat during that era.

While Ram Vilas Paswan’s efforts brought a semblance of development in nearby Hajipur, Patna’s consumption and economy were mainly driven by bureaucrats, both high- and low-level ministers, their close allies, and legislators coming to the city for different purposes.

The city’s problems were compounded by poor connecting roads and fear en route. For instance, a 70-km journey from Muzaffarpur to Patna would take four to five hours with no guarantee of safety.

Nitish Kumar’s arrival

Patna’s more than a century-old misfortune and misgovernance was set for a twist in 2005, when Nitish Kumar took charge as Chief Minister of Bihar.

Kumar came with the experience of serving under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was known for his emphasis on connectivity.

With the improvement in law and order, the use of muscle in government contracts decelerated, which became a crucial factor in the Nitish Kumar's government opting for the Patna City Development Plan in 2006, as part of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM).

It was the first such plan developed after 1994, which indicated the seriousness of the state government in this regard.

Under Kumar, Bihar’s transport witnessed an unprecedented push, and Patna led the way with new roads as well as the upgrading of old ones. New roads, flyovers, underpasses, and bridges were constructed to address traffic congestion and improve connectivity.

Notable projects included the widening and modernisation of Bailey Road, the construction of the Mithapur and Chiraiyatand flyovers (which also serve as road over-bridges over busy railway lines), and the Kankarbagh flyover, all of which improved movement in densely populated areas.

The Digha-Sonepur rail-cum-road bridge (JP Setu), completed in 2015, provided a vital new crossing over the Ganga, connecting Patna to Saran district and reducing pressure on the Mahatma Gandhi Setu.

Multiple underpasses and road over-bridges were built at major railway crossings, such as at Rajendra Nagar, Mithapur, and Khagaul, helping to eliminate bottlenecks and improve safety.

New bypass roads and elevated corridors, including the AIIMS-Digha elevated road and the southern bypass, were developed to divert heavy vehicles and direct traffic away from the city centre, directly supporting Patna’s urban expansion and economic activity.

These projects are part of a broader modernisation effort under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

Infrastructure boom and urban challenges

The ease of transportation catalysed the growth of industries, mainly the service sector, in the main city. Areas, especially in the vicinity of Patna Junction, boomed.

Retail outlets, boutiques, bank offices, coaching centres, business complexes, consultancy services, hospitals, and hotels are some of the bigger contributors to Patna’s post-2005 population and consumption growth.

Watching them, small businesses and homeowners took to their versions of businesses. Walking along even in Patna city, it is easy to find a one-floor house or residential complex where one or more rooms are rented for making and selling snacks or even charging stations for e-rickshaws, as if it is a specially designated business area.

That holds true for many homes located in areas like Bailey Road, Bander Bagicha, Exhibition Road, Boring Road, Gandhi Maidan Marg, Frazer Road, Indrapuri, and Maurya Lok, among others. The establishment of P&M Mall by Prakash Jha in 2011 added another glorious dimension to the city trying to recover from its past.

With time, the demarcation between residential and commercial space seems to be at risk of erosion in Bihar’s capital.

Even in specific residential areas, the problem is that large colonies like Kankarbagh, Rajvanshi Nagar, Gardanibagh, and Bahadurpur are witnessing new apartment complexes rising alongside older, single-family homes. It has produced problems like inadequate amenities, unreliable drainage, and limited green spaces.

On the other hand, the government has also made efforts to establish specific industrial zones in Patliputra, Fatuha, and Bihta. A special IT hub is also on the cards, but it is yet to gain momentum even after six years of its establishment.

All of these developments were done on a war footing, which explains why some of them are still being launched. However, initial developments brought significant changes to the demography as well as the way of living in the city.

By 2011, the municipal corporation area had 1.68 million residents, while the urban agglomeration reached 2.04 million, a 22.3 per cent spike from 2001 to 2011, making Patna the 18th largest urban agglomeration in India.

Children under six years made up 11.32 per cent of the city’s population, indicating a reputation as a flourishing district, a fact vindicated by the 2009 World Bank Study, which placed Patna as the second-best city for starting a business in India.

To accommodate rapid population growth and migration, large tracts of agricultural land in the suburbs were converted into residential colonies and commercial complexes.

Areas like Kankarbagh, Patliputra Colony, Rajendranagar, Ashiana Nagar, and Rajeev Nagar, major government and private sector housing projects, witnessed rapid expansion.

At the end of Nitish Kumar’s first term, Patna’s average growth rate over the last five years (2006–2010) was clocked at 3.72 per cent. The city contributed (and still does) well over 20 per cent to the state's GDP, a spectacular figure given the fact that the state has 38 districts.

The inequality is well reflected in Patna’s per capita income being more than double that of the state’s average, as well as the second richest district in the state.

However, the flip side of the coin is that other cities in Bihar did not grow according to their potential, from the effects of which Patna cannot and could not remain untouched.

Apart from Patna, districts like Begusarai, Muzaffarpur, Gaya (especially Bodh Gaya), and Nalanda (especially Rajgir) are some of the other major avenues for employment in Bihar.

In these districts, settlement inspired by new developments is always tricky due to the uncertainty of their growth trajectory. Additionally, local identity and bonds are more prominent in non-capital districts than capitals, which tend to be liberal towards outsiders.

Patna, being the capital, offers better and more certain avenues for a stable source of income, which explains why most people flock here in search of jobs.

Economic growth and employment dynamics

The city currently houses some major names like Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Aricent, IndiaMART, InterMesh Ltd, Alkem Laboratories, Baidyanath Ayurvedic Pharmacy, Brand Medix, Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Reliance Communication, Paytm, Avery Dennison Corporation, Sturlite Electric Pvt Ltd, and P S Global, among dozens of others.

These, along with other major corporations like Hero, Britannia, PepsiCo, operate in the broader Patna Metropolitan Area, but within PMC, local firms dominate.

With these big names comes an array of small-scale ancillary companies involved in the supply chain, turning Patna’s industrial landscape into a patchwork of small-scale enterprises with very few sprawling factories.

Although the employment data is hard to gather, this writer’s daily interaction with workers indicates that most of the semi-skilled workers likely sustain a living of ₹10,000–₹25,000 monthly, with men outnumbering women.

Patna’s problem is that it cannot supply labour for all services on its own. For a significant chunk of Patna residents, the work profile is not suited to their stature. It partially explains why, even at the peak of its development in 2011, Patna’s unemployment rate was eight per cent, the second highest in the country.

The figure has not changed much in the last decade. During the October–December 2024 quarter, the same number for Patna was 6.4 per cent, quite an irony for a district which is looked upon as an employment hub by other city residents in the state.

Locals are willing to fill only high-paying skilled roles, so for unskilled and semi-skilled workers, most units have to rely on labourers coming from the nearby area: Hajipur, 20 kilometres north across the Ganges; Fatuha and Barh, 15–30 kilometres east; Masaurhi and Paliganj, 20–40 kilometres south; Maner and Bihta, 15–25 kilometres west.

Apart from that, migrant workers from Nalanda, Gaya, Jehanabad, Chhapra, Vaishali, and even Muzaffarpur rush to Patna in search of work which pays in excess of ₹10,000, far more than their wage realisation of ₹5,000–₹8,000 in their hometowns.

Then there are restaurant waiters, sweet shop servers, receptionists, and cloth sellers who flock to Patna for dignified service sector work in accordance with their expectations.

The question is whether Patna’s urban transport infrastructure is equipped for such a load. As of writing, the answer seems to be a resounding no.

Patna staring at loss of 15 lakh man hours

Beyond the urban cluster region, Patna is 50 km away from Arrah, 45 km from Bakhtiyarpur, 20 km away from Hajipur, 30 km away from Barh, 100 km away from Gaya, 25 km away from Bihta, 30 km away from Masaurhi, and 70 km away from both Chhapra and Muzaffarpur, albeit in different directions.

For the sake of simplicity, let us see how three main districts located in North and South Bihar connect to Patna. The minimum distance for our consideration is 50 km.

In North Bihar, we have Chhapra (Saran) and Muzaffarpur, which are both located 70 km from Patna. People from both these cities travel to Patna for jobs as well as other purposes.

For those earning well, buses charging between ₹140–₹200 is a viable option, while those who travel for earning ₹10,000–₹15,000 would prefer trains and ride-sharing with trucks, vans or other vehicles going towards the same route for business purposes.

With Chhapra, the problem is the perennial under-construction Patna–Chhapra road. The 66.74 km National Highway NH-19 stretch between Chhapra and Hajipur is one of the biggest failures to date. The construction which began two decades back missed its deadlines by a decade, leading to rebuke from Patna High Court as well.

While travelling to Saran for a Lok Sabha ground report last year, a local friend had remarked, “When you start seeing opposite lane vehicles on the same side of the highway, you are in Chhapra.”

The work has accelerated afterwards, but the problem still persists due to various activities going on, causing at least half an hour of lost labour per person. If the person hops onto Gandhi Setu, a minimum 10–15 minutes of further delay awaits them.

Another option is taking a train, which takes one to Hajipur, Patliputra and Patna Junction, with the Hajipur route making up more than 80 per cent of connectivity. The problems with Patliputra and Patna Junction are twofold.

Patliputra is a bit far from the city centre, while the number of trains coming to Patna Junction is quite low and not in accordance with office timing.

That is why people prefer to take the Hajipur route, having both frequency and timing matching office hours hustle. The deboarding prepares them for one more road journey in main Patna through traffic and pollution.

The same problem persists for Muzaffarpur residents as well. If they do not have a bike, loss of 90–120 labour minutes is certain. On worse days, it can stretch to hours due to road construction projects and poor traffic management.

For someone coming from South Bihar districts such as Gaya and Jehanabad, the train option is safer, affordable and more frequent than the bus. One problem which can be worked upon here is that of increasing train and bus frequency during evening versions of peak hours, the time when people go back to their homes.

Despite the South Bihar train route being slightly better, residents of this zone have to face two problems which are common between both South and North Biharis: the problem of intra-city traffic in Patna.

Firstly, passenger trains to Hajipur or Patna Junction (coming from Gaya, Jehanabad) are delayed by 15–60 minutes. Similarly, BSRTC and private buses easily miss their slots by 30–60 minutes at least.

Secondly, as they enter the outskirts of Patna, the city's 800-kilometre intra-city road network acting as its backbone awaits them, with Ashok Rajpath’s 7-kilometre stretch on the sides of the Ganga, Bailey Road’s 5-kilometre commercial corridor, and Boring Road’s upscale strip working as sheet anchors.

Patna–Danapur Road, Kankarbagh Main Road, Fraser Road, and Harding Road also knit the city together, while NH-30 and NH-83 link east and south.

When inside Patna, outsiders generally use shared autos for transportation since public transport in the city is not efficient. A 10 km journey inside Patna taking 30 to 60 minutes has become the norm during peak hours, hurting productivity.

This is the state of affairs after dozens of dream road projects (mentioned above) have been finalised and inaugurated in Patna.

The intra-city congestion hurts those travelling from relatively nearby areas like Hajipur, Sonepur, Fatuha, Bakhtiyarpur, and Maner. Although, compared to people from Muzaffarpur, Gaya or Chhapra, they incur 60 per cent less loss of their working hours.

Cumulatively, the overall time lost during travelling to and fro from Patna is between 60 to 120 minutes for people travelling more than 50 km, while those travelling less than that lose 30 to 40 minutes.

Patna Masterplan 2031 projects the city as having 16 lakh workers in 2031, which means that if transportation does not improve, Patna will lose at least 15 lakh man hours per day due to traffic issues.

The primary reason behind such problems is the hara-kiri caused by poorly planned infrastructure upgrades and digging.

According to the May 2025 report by Times of India, projects like the double-decker flyover, Patna Metro, Namami Gange, and drainage works have severely disrupted major roads like Ashok Rajpath, the 2.2 km stretch from Kargil Chowk to NIT More, SP Verma Road, New Dak Bungalow Road, Ashiana–Digha Road’s 540-metre stretch, Boring Road’s 120-metre section, Rajeev Nagar’s roads, Jamal Road, Hanuman Nagar and Malahi Pakri among others.

Interestingly, all these projects are designed to cater to local needs, so residents lose the moral appeal for a brief period of time.

However, their experience of the last two decades says something else. Each solution brought forward by Patna authorities has only complicated the problem.

The road projects only increased traffic caused due to rerouting by navigation, the housing projects only increased demands for more unaffordable housing, the business establishment opened the avenues for intermixing of civilian and business areas, and efforts to divert water only had the effect of normalising floods.

The flood situation is particularly disheartening.

Forty-four years after Sankarshan Thakur faced the aforementioned ordeals, Pappu Yadav made headlines for serving people affected by floods in Patna, an evidence of the fact that the city had not been able to move ahead on this front despite multiple development plans amidst ever-growing boundaries on either side.

The flood of 2019 confirmed the narrative around the stalling of Patna’s development paradigm and also the fact that Nitish's plans had come to a halt.

While local political circles and the business class, especially property dealers, attribute the second problem to negative sentiments around the coming back of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the technical reason behind it is uneven expansion of Patna’s financial and municipal clout.

The Masterplan conundrum

This is due to a lack of political will and institutional mechanisms in ensuring that masterplans see the light of day. Despite having multiple 20-year-long masterplans, most interventions could not blossom due to various political and legal factors. The last such major intervention was in 1981, after which the city lacked strategic development for 34 years.

For instance, the Patna Master Plan 2031 document revealed that the city used just 5.90 per cent of its land for transport, which is significantly less than the 20 per cent criteria recommended by Urban and Regional Development Plans Formulation and Implementation (URDPFI) Guidelines in Indian Urban Planning.

This is just one of the consequences of the phenomenon which locals love to call as “anything is growing anywhere in Patna”.

The Master Plan document famously noted, “In the absence of statutory planning intervention, Patna witnessed unplanned and haphazard development within city area as well as in the peripheral areas which deteriorates built fabric, basic urban infrastructure facilities such as water roads, water supply, drainage. Patna is also facing a major problem of drainage, as the city is surrounded by major rivers Ganga, Sone, and Punpun; during the monsoons, the spillover from river tends to flood the city. Therefore, there is a need to channelise and provide storm water channels as rational measures from flooding.”

The masterplan came up with a fanfare and pragmatic projection of the city's expansion based on the estimated population of 60.2 lakhs in 2031. Out of the total area of 1,167 square kilometres, the plan set aside 541 for development.

One praiseworthy feature of the plan is turning Patna into multi-nuclei centres for urban needs. Bihta, Naubatpur, Punpun, Fatuha and Khusrupur are designated as satellite towns for Patna, while Hajipur and Sonepur already serve that purpose.

The plan clearly demarcates land into specific zones namely residential, commercial, industrial, open space, water bodies and transport zones among others.

The commendable thing is that 13.8 per cent of total space is reserved for transport infrastructure including road transport, transit corridors and Patna Metro. High-density, mixed-use, transit-oriented development is encouraged along major transport corridors to maximise land efficiency.

The masterplan is designed to be implemented in three phases:

• Phase 1 (2016–2021): Initial infrastructure upgrades and plan ratification.

• Phase 2 (2022–2026): Expansion of satellite towns and transport networks.

• Phase 3 (2027–2031): Finalising citywide integration and sustainability measures.

Less than 50 per cent of the total area (1,167 sq km) is being developed under the 10-year period of Phase I and Phase II, while the rest will be rejuvenated in the final five-year period of Phase III involving citywide integration.

The city is currently going through the second phase of expansion of towns and transport networks. It just welcomed the Mithapur–Mahauli elevated road, double-deck flyover in Patna and Kacchi Dargah–Bidupur Bridge.

By 15 August of the ongoing election year, Patnaites expect that they will get the much-awaited metro rail, which will witness rapid expansion over the years, paving the way for RRTS-like facility in future.

In essence, the larger plan of treating Patna as a base and supplying labour from surrounding areas has not bode well for the city and there is an urgent need of turning those areas into self-dependent satellite towns which will serve themselves as well as Patna.

Patna and Lucknow: A Tale of Urban Planning

While sounding virtuous for Patna, the state government again misses a key aspect from it, and development of Lucknow offers some valuable lessons. It is true that a state’s capital needs to grow, but it cannot grow disproportionately while chucking away with resources for other districts.

Compared to Bihar, Uttar Pradesh has shown more maturity in developing its capital. While Patna’s geographical positioning places it at the centre of a circular orbit on the state’s map, for Lucknow, that orbit is elliptical on Uttar Pradesh’s map, making it tougher to have an equidistant centre from all corners of the state.

When viewed from Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh has more width than length. Its positioning makes it suitable for a corridor-based growth and governance, rather than a radial one.

For the planners, it means that urbanisation of Uttar Pradesh will not be led by Lucknow, albeit it has to be pulled along a linear path on the east-west route and Lucknow’s growth will automatically become a byproduct.

The Purvanchal Expressway, the Bundelkhand Expressway and the upcoming Ganga Expressway effectively stretch Lucknow’s economic orbit far into eastern and western UP.

Apart from working as a connecting link, these expressways open avenues for planned economic belts where logistics parks, industrial zones, and residential townships are being developed. The 188-acre IT City and the Defence Corridor hub near Lucknow are direct beneficiaries of this expressway-centred growth strategy.

The strategy has proved crucial in the decentralisation of Uttar Pradesh as well. Contrary to Patna’s reputation as the best destination for investment, Lucknow has many counterparts which work as healthy competition for the state’s capital in different domains.

For manufacturing and education, it has Kanpur, with which a Rapid Transit System (RRTS) is being built, reducing the travel time to 45 minutes. Similarly, Noida outpaces it in IT and electronics, Varanasi and Ayodhya have their own religious significance, while Gorakhpur has healthcare and agro-processing.

Such a distributed setup has the effect of reducing pressure on the capital while giving economic diversification to the state. For someone not happy with his/her standard of living at any of the places between Gorakhpur-Lucknow, Varanasi-Lucknow, Noida-Lucknow or Ayodhya-Lucknow, rushing to the capital is not the only option, unlike Bihar-based individuals.

Uttar Pradesh has managed to employ its rural, semi-urban and urban labour pool without choking its capital, something which Bihar is still struggling with.

One of the key factors in effectuating such a strategy is the land pooling and management by the UP government through the Uttar Pradesh State Industrial Development Authority (UPSIDA) and Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA).

Getting land in Bihar is still a tedious task, a fact which is acknowledged by Chirag Paswan, Minister of Food Processing Industries of India.

Compared to Patna, Lucknow also did better on the urban planning front. Lucknow Metro, which began its operations in 2017, has done well in lowering traffic load, despite less than expected ridership and profitability.

On the planning front, new areas like Gomti Nagar Extension, Shaheed Path, and the proposed Film City node stand as strong testaments to clear zoning, transport integration, and corridor-based growth.

Resultantly, Lucknow does not just anchor the state but extends its clout, administrative and economic, along the elliptical orbit.

On the other hand, Patna is currently standing at the centre, pulling most of the state’s resources towards itself, promising to give big bang return in future.