BIMARU states and Special Package Problem

Why in news?

Bihar elections and many party claiming to remove BIMARU tag after getting elected. 

What is Bimaru?

Bimaru was an acronym coined by the demographer Ashish Bose for Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh (UP), states considered to be laggards in India’s development journey.

Progress so far?

Bihar and UP have remained backward while other have advanced and there are two interlinked reasons for backwardness of Bihar and UP. Population is huge and even basic tasks likes maintaining law and order is also not being done as required. Let us look into these problems in detail.

Population

• As per 2011 census, 25% Indians hailed from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. 

Basic tasks problem

• Law and order problem
• tough to manage because of scale of population
• Literacy level: 
• In 2011, Bihar was last among all states/UTs and UP was at 29th!
• MMR: 
• UP - 292 per 100,000 live births; Bihar 219. 
• The all-India average is 178. 
• Fertility Rate
• Bihar’s fertility rate is 3.5; UP’s 3.3. All-India figure is 2.4.

Solution and which solution is better?

• Seek special Packages from centre - UP done in past and Bihar recently got package of 125000 lac crore. --> This option is prone to risk of corruption for which these states are already notorious.
• Like NRHM scam in UP of thousands of crores and poor implementation of NREGA in Bihar (Pointed out by World bank also in 2014 study)
• Fix governance --> Private investment will come --> Growth of state + revenue --> More spending on social sector.
• Second option is important as no money can help without good human capital which essentially depends on education (Literacy rate) and healthcare (MMRand Birth Rate)
• If these states do not improve basic governance then soon developed states like TN and MH would  protest against transferring more resources to them