Bihar records highest dip in poverty ratio

In what could be a relief to Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar, the C Rangarajan panel on poverty estimation report has said that in Bihar the poverty ratios dipped by over one-third in just two years between 2009-10 and 2011-12 – much greater than any other state in India.

Updated on: Jul 8, 2014, 01:48:23 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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In what could be a relief to Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar, the C Rangarajan panel on poverty estimation report has said that in Bihar the poverty ratios dipped by over one-third in just two years between 2009-10 and 2011-12 — much greater than any other state in India.

Kumar had resigned as Bihar chief minister after receiving drubbing at the hands of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance in the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls. The JD(U) had won only 2 whereas the NDA bagged 28 out of the total 40 seats in Bihar.

According to the Rangarajan panel on state-wise poverty ratios Bihar witnessed the maximum dip in poverty ratios with the fall from 63.9% in 2009-10 to 41.3% in 2011-12 — a dip of about 22 percentage points. In absolute terms, it translates into 21 million people lesser poor people in the state.

The feat resulted in Bihar losing the dubious tag of having the highest poverty ratio in India.

Bihar has been replaced by BJP-ruled Chhattisgarh, where the panel has categorised 47.9% of the people as being poor.

In 2009-10, 53.8% of Chhattisgarh’s population was categorised as poor as per Rangarajan’s definition of poverty based on “basic standard of well being” including spending on food, education, transport and house rent.

The panel’s estimation shows that poverty is still a huge concern in Maoist effected states even though the UPA government had spent over `4,600 crore in 83 districts over four years starting 2010-11 under its ambitious Integrated Action Plan (IAP) for bridging development deficiency in Left Wing Extremism hit areas.

Apart from Maoist hit Chhattisgarh, two other affected states Odisha and Jharkhand find themselves high on the poverty ratio scale.

Around 45.9% of people in Odisha were poor in 2011-12 as compared to 48.3% in 2009-10.

In Jharkhand, 42.4% were poor in 2011-12 as compared to 52.1% in 2009-10.

A member of the panel, who was not willing to be quoted said, the estimation clearly showed that effective implementation of poverty alleviation programmes can result in dip in numbers.

“Bihar is a case for study on how government programmes can reduce poverty. But in contrast the same programmes have not helped in substantially reducing poverty in other Maoist-affected states where impact of these programmes are not much,” he added.

Eight districts of Bihar were also covered under IAP.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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