Dr. Devendra
Kothari
Population and
Development Analyst
Forum for
Population Action
“Unless the Modi Government of India and
BIMARU states engineer a common agenda for human resource development to lift
these economies, the shadow of poverty as well as poor governance issue will
continue to haunt India and thwart its tryst with destiny. This is a challenge for India’s
development in the years immediately ahead".
In the early 1980s, Prof.
Ashish Bose made headlines after presenting a one-page synopsis of a research
paper to the then prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, blaming the “BIMARU” states for
India’s burgeoning population and other socio-economic problems. BIMARU is an acronym formed
from the first letters of the names of the Indian states
of Bihar,
Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar
Pradesh.[1] BIMARU has
a resemblance to a Hindi word ‘Bimar’
which means sick. Researchers and policy makers have argued that India cannot develop itself unless BIMARU
states are developed as well; since these states, having 40 per cent of India’s
population, have recoded
high fertility as well as high maternal and infant mortality, low literacy and very
high unwanted fertility amid poor socio-economic development.[2]
The
post explores whether BIMARU club still has four
states? Whether there is
some remarkable socio-economic development in these starts?
While addressing an election meeting in Bihar
in August 2015, Prime Minister Modi asserted that among the four BIMARU states
- only Bihar was still lagging behind while Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh had
surged ahead. Further, the concept of 'BIMARU’
state, as argued by the policy makers and politicians of these states, is
outdated, since these states have been advancing faster than some of the
developed ones. While speaking at the Jaipur Literature Festival,
2015, Arvind Panagariya, Vice-Chairman
of the NITI Aayog (formerly Planning Commission), said that Rajasthan had come
out ahead of many other states in terms of development and was no “longer
considered BIMARU”. Five years ago, in 2010, the then Planning
Commission Deputy Chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia said that “the old BIMARU
concept is no longer true”.
A comparison of some basic facts about these states would,
however, show that the conclusion is not only incorrect but also unfortunate. Even after three decades, acronym “BIMARU”,
used to define underdevelopment and poor socio-demographic indices in these
states seems to ring true. All these four states
still continue to lag behind, their people still enmeshed in poverty and
under-development. The
Rajan Committee report has also included these states in the category of the
“least developed states” of India.[3]
Table 1 presents variables used by Prof. Bose to
discuss the causes of slow progress in these states namely: total fertility,
infant and maternal mortality and literacy. A comparison with earlier data reveals
that nothing changed in the last three decades.
Population of
India at 0.00 hrs of 1st March, 2011 was 1210.8 million compared to
1028.7 million in 2001. In absolute terms, the population of the country has
increased by 182.1 million during the Last census decade. Slightly less than 37
per cent of the total population of the country (445 million) was enumerated in the BIMARU
states in 2011. However, these states contributed around 44 percent of the total
increase of India’s population during the census decade.
The BIMARU states recorded relatively high rates of population growth
during 2001-2011 as compared to the national average. In the last census decade,
Bihar, with population of more than 104 million, had the third highest rate of
decadal population growth in the country at 25.1 per cent; though this is
misleading, as the other two faster-growing states were Meghalaya (total
population 3 million) and Arunachal Pradesh (1.3 million), states that hardly
have the demographic heft of Bihar. Among major 17 states with population of
more than 30 million each, Bihar had the highest rate of population growth in
the country. UP, with an even heavier demographic drag, grew at 20.1 per cent
during this period. India grew at a much slower 17.6 per cent during this
decade.
A sizable proportion of population growth in these states is
fueled by unwanted fertility. Table 2 (Cols. 8 and 9) indicate that the number
of births that were unplanned or simply unwanted had increased between National
Family Health Survey 2 (1998-99) and NFHS 3 (2005-06). Among the all the states
of India, the total unwanted fertility was highest in Bihar (1.6 children per
woman), closely followed by Uttar Pradesh (1.5). Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh
also recoded the higher unwanted fertility than all India average of 0.7 children
per woman.
As a result, the BIMARU states have
some of the highest fertility rates in India. In 2013, the Total Fertility Rate (children per woman) was 3.4 for Bihar, 3.1 for Uttar Pradesh, 2.9 for Madhya
Pradesh, and 2.8 for Rajasthan, compared to 2.3 for India as a whole. A comparison of the total fertility (Table 1)
with total unwanted fertility (Table 2) indicates that if unwanted births could
be eliminated, the Total Fertility Rate would drop to below replacement level
fertility required to initiate the process of population stabilization in the
country.
These states also recorded very high
infant and maternal mortality rates. All four
states have infant mortality rates - infants dying due to disease and
malnutrition before they are a year old - higher than the national average,
with Madhya Pradesh worst at 54 deaths per 1,000 live births. Maternal
mortality rates, that is, mothers dying while giving birth due to lack of
adequate facilities, are unconscionably high in all four states with Uttar
Pradesh at 292 and Rajasthan at 255, as against the national average of 178. In
all four states, around a third of children are underweight.
To know development in a community, Literacy is another indicator
of economic development. For purpose of census, a person in age limit of seven
and above, who can both write and read with understanding in any of the
language is considered as a literate in India. In 2011, Bihar was at the bottom of the heap
of 28 states and 7 Union territories in literacy rate ranking. Rajasthan (33rd
rank) and UP (29th) were not far behind.
Bihar had the lowest male literacy rate, while Rajasthan recorded the lowest female
literacy rate in the country.
Human capital is one of India’s greatest assets. Yet, the
world’s fastest growing economy has not touched millions of Indian citizens at
the bottom of the economic pyramid. The latest
Human Development Report, 2015 does not speak very high about India’s
achievement in enlarging people’s
opportunities/capabilities and improving their well-being. India ranked
a lowly 130 in the Human Development Index (HDI) even if up from last year's
135 in the list of 188 nations. It is mainly due to stagnancy in education, health especially reproductive health, women's
empowerment, living conditions and level of urbanization in BIMARU states continue to drag
India down. In other words, the biggest challenge before India today is to diffuse
access to education, skills, health and related issues in a more inclusive
manner in BIMARU states to unlock its human potential.[4]
For a country as vast and diverse as India, among the 17 major
states of India, the southern states retain their high ranking in 2014 compared with a 2007-08 HDI
constructed by the National Institute of Labour Economics Research and
Development (earlier known as the Institute of Applied Manpower Research), an
arm of the NITI Aayog. On the other hand, all the four BIMARY states were at
the bottom, as shown in Table 3. The 17 major states of India, with their
sizeable population and geographical area, are bigger than many countries in
the world. If the 17 states were to be deemed as separate countries, then these
would rank from 104 (Kerala) to 163 (Bihar), according to the scores in the latest
UN report.
|
Table 1:
Selected Indicators, BIMARU States
|
||||||||
|
State
|
Decadal population growth
(In percent)
|
TFR
(Number of children per woman)
|
IMR
(Infant deaths per 1,000 live births)
|
MMR
Mother deaths per live 100,000 births)
|
||||
|
1991-01
|
2001-11
|
2001
|
2013
|
2001`
|
2013
|
1997-98
|
2010-12
|
|
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
5
|
6
|
7
|
8
|
9
|
|
Bihar
|
28.6
|
25.1
|
3.9
|
3.4
|
62
|
42
|
531
|
219
|
|
Madhya Pradesh
|
24.3
|
20.3
|
4.0
|
2.9
|
86
|
54
|
441
|
230
|
|
Rajasthan
|
28.4
|
21.1
|
4.7
|
2.8
|
79
|
47
|
508
|
255
|
|
Uttar Pradesh
|
25.6
|
20.1
|
3.1
|
3.1
|
82
|
50
|
606
|
292
|
|
India
|
21.5
|
17.6
|
4.5
|
2.3
|
66
|
40
|
398
|
178
|
|
Source:
Registrar General India, and Census of
India.
|
||||||||
|
Table 2:
Selected Indicators, BIMARU States
|
||||||||
|
State
|
Percent female literates
|
Percent
of couples using modern contraceptive
|
Percent of children fully immunized
|
Number of unwanted children per woman
|
||||
|
2001
|
2011
|
1998-99
|
2005-06
|
1998-99
|
2005-06
|
1998-99
|
2005-06
|
|
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
5
|
6
|
7
|
8
|
9
|
|
Bihar
|
47.0
|
63.8
|
22.4
|
28.9
|
11.0
|
32.8
|
0.9
|
1.6
|
|
Madhya Pradesh
|
63.7
|
70.6
|
42.6
|
52.8
|
22.4
|
40.3
|
0.9
|
1.0
|
|
Rajasthan
|
60.4
|
67.1
|
38.1
|
44.4
|
17.3
|
26.5
|
1.2
|
1.0
|
|
Uttar Pradesh
|
56.3
|
69.7
|
22.0
|
29.3
|
21.2
|
23.0
|
1.2
|
1.5
|
|
India
|
64.8
|
74.0
|
42.8
|
48.5
|
42.0
|
43.5
|
0.7
|
0.8
|
|
Source:
Registrar General India and National Family Health Surveys 2 and 3.
|
||||||||
|
Table 3: Major
States of India by HDI ranking , 2015
|
||
|
Major State of
India
|
HDI Value
|
Rank
|
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
|
Kerala
|
0.7117
|
1
|
|
Himachal Pradesh
|
0.6701
|
2
|
|
Tamil Nadu
|
0.6663
|
3
|
|
Maharashtra
|
0.6659
|
4
|
|
Punjab
|
0.6614
|
5
|
|
Haryana
|
0.6613
|
6
|
|
Jammu &
Kashmir
|
0.6489
|
7
|
|
Karnataka
|
0.6176
|
8
|
|
Andhra Pradesh
|
0.6165
|
9
|
|
Gujarat
|
0.6164
|
10
|
|
All India
|
0.6087
|
-
|
|
West Bengal
|
0.6042
|
11
|
|
Rajasthan
|
0.5768
|
12
|
|
Odisha
|
0.5567
|
13
|
|
Madhya Pradesh
|
0.5567
|
14
|
|
Assam
|
0.5555
|
15
|
|
Uttar Pradesh
|
0.5415
|
16
|
|
Bihar
|
0.5361
|
17
|
|
Source: http://www.livemint.com/Politics/3KhGMVXGxXcGYBRMsmDCFO/Why-Kerala-is-like-Maldives-and-Uttar-Pradesh-Pakistan.html Human
Development Report 2015
|
||
Although, some
of these states have experienced high growth rates, they still lag other more
progressive states. In an article - Are BIMARU States Still Bimaru? - Economist Vinita
Sharma extended Bose's analysis to recent years to ascertain if the
proposition is still valid. She finds that the BIMARU states have made a lot of
progress, yet they continue to be BIMARU as the gap between them and the
national average persists in a majority of indicators.[5]
In 2013, a committee constituted under the chairmanship of
Raghuram Rajan, then Chief Economic Adviser in the Ministry of Finance,
developed an index of backwardness to compare states with ten sub-components
including per capita expenditure, the poverty rate and urbanization rate. On
that ranking, Odisha ranked the lowest followed by Bihar and Madhya Pradesh at
joint second from last. Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh were also tied at the same
rank.
Politically, BIMARU states are very important. Between them these
four states account for 174 of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha. The BJP’s
challenge will be won and lost here. As such, the BJP, the ruling party, has to
focus on these battleground states if it wants to come back in power in 2019.
In sum,
unless the Government of India and BIMARU states engineer a common agenda for
human resource development to lift these economies, the shadow of poverty and
as well as poor governance issue will continue to haunt India and thwart its
tryst with destiny. This is a
challenge for India’s development in the years immediately ahead.
[1] Since 2000, there has also been a change in the geographic
composition of BIMARU states, with Bihar being bifurcated into Bihar and
Jharkhand; Madhya Pradesh being bifurcated into Madhya Pradesh and
Chhattisgarh; and Uttar Pradesh being bifurcated into Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
[2] “Emerging
demographic divide: A dilemma for India” Blog
Entries by Devendra K Kothari at:
http://kotharionindia.blogspot.in/2012/02/emerging-demographic-divide-dilemma-for.html.
[3] “Rajan Panel
Report on backwardness of States of India”, Blog
Entries by Devendra K Kothari at: http://kotharionindia.blogspot.in/2013/10/rajan-panel-report-on-backwardness-of_3169.html.
[4] Refer, Author’s article: India: Empowering Human
Capital- an Unfinished Agenda at:
http://kotharionindia.blogspot.in/2016/05/india-needs-to-be-as-wary-of-unlocking.html.
[5] Refer, Vinita Sharma. 2015. Are BIMARU States Still Bimaru?,
Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 50, Issue No. 18.
