Amidst the high voltage campaign to tom-tom Bihar’s achievements for registering an unprecedented growth rate of 13.13 per cent for the year-2011-12, there exists a dark story. Almost half of the state’s population still lives below poverty line (BPL).
According to sources in the Planning Commission, the background note, prepared by the panel for the Plan (2012-13) discussion with Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday, around 48 per cent of the state’s population comes under BPL category of which 55.3 percent live in rural areas and 39.4 percent live in the urban areas.
Incidentally, in calculating the number of poor in the state, the plan panel used the same Tendulkar Committee methodology (with the base year 2009-10), according to which only those persons would be considered living under BPL, who consume `28 in urban areas and `22 in rural areas on a daily basis. On the basis of this methodology, the national average of BPL population is 29 per cent only.
It would be appropriate here to note that after the Planning Commission announced the BPL cut off figure in April this year, there was a huge outcry in the country. Even the ruling coalition — JD(U) and BJP — joined the bandwagon in ridiculing the plan panel and its deputy chairman by claiming the move as “outrageous.”
Later, sensing the political cost involved in what the plan panel did with the poverty estimates, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh intervened to douse the raging controversy. He constituted a fresh committee headed by Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council chairman C. Rangarajan to take a fresh look and arrive at a new methodology to determine poverty in the country. Alarmed by the revelation made in the background note, sources said, the plan panel is gearing up to impress upon the chief minister at the plan discussion meeting on Wednesday that the state “needs to pull-up its socks to ensure that the high growth becomes inclusive.” Further aggravating the problem of poverty in the state, Bihar’s total population has also increased from 8,29,98,509 in 2001 to 10,38,04,637 in 2011, according to the latest census.