Backbone of Bihar Economy on Backfoot

by GHANSHYAM KUMAR PANDEY

Bihar is one of the Indian States where agriculture, with its fertile alluvial soil and favourable agro-climatic condition, has been moving on the path of progress since independence, though on a slow pace. About 90 per cent of the total population of the State of Bihar lives in the rural areas and more than 75 per cent of its population out of 83 million inhabitants depends on agriculture and allied sectors. Thus agriculture is the backbone of State’s economy. (Government of Bihar, 2001) In fact agricultural development through infra-structure facilities was carried out in the State under successive Five Year Plans. Despite continuous decline in the net sown area, there has been a steady growth of the principal crops in Bihar but the increase in their productivity has not been impressive during the last 50 years. The foodgrain production is still not enough to the meet the minimum requirements of the population of the State.

During recent years, the economy has shown turnarounds, throwing up new issues and acquired considerable attention throughout the country and even abroad for its remarkable performance on the development front. But, despite this progress, rural Bihar is far from benefiting fully from the opportunities generated by rapid growth. This can be easily observed from the present scenario of agriculture in the State. The support mechanism for enhancement of agricultural development has been further stretched to ensure that the growth of the State’s economy is sustainable in the years ahead. Bihar’s journey of accelerated agricultural development has been accompanied by a few advantages and a number of handicaps. At the national level, it is being recognised that Bihar is a sleeping giant as far as its potential for agriculture growth is concerned. Even as the State is being considered as the next big hope for the agriculture sector in the country, this sector remains the most crucial factor for the State’s economy.

At the time of independence, the socio-economic and political situation of the State was not as depressing as it has gradually become today. Bihar was not only a politically stable State but it also enjoyed the reputation of being one of the best administered States in the 1950s; it had a legacy of sound infrastructure in irrigation, power and industry and it registered an annual compound growth rate 3.95 per cent as compared to the all India growth rate 3.3 per cent. (Prasad, 2007) Despite the strength of the agriculture sector, it is a paradox that this sector is functioning much below its potential. Agricultural productivity in Bihar was much better compared to other States in the fifties, but it is now much below the national average. In the last few years, there has been an appropriate growth due to improved seeds, technologies and inputs, but the State has still to go miles to achieve responsive growth. It has been usually accepted that there is lower utilisation of the HYV technology in Bihar than in the country as a whole due to the agrarian structural barriers; even then agriculture is the engine of growth and development of Bihar.

The place of agriculture in the economy has become more prominent after the bifurcation of Bihar and the creation of Jharkhand, as most of the industries and the bulk of the mineral resources went to the latter State. Bihar’s economic growth is now even more dependent on agricultural growth. Agriculture plays as a key role in the overall economic and social well-being of the State of Bihar. It is the single largest sectoral occupation in the State. Hence, the goal of the agricultural production system should be to maximise the income of the land owning and landless rural populace to improve their livelihood. The agriculture sector continues to be an important factor in driving the State’s economy as, according to quick estimates, it has contributed about one-third to the gross domestic product. With around 90 per cent of the rural population directly or indirectly depending on agriculture for their livelihood support, agri-culture continues to play a dominant role in Bihar’s economy. The average size of a farm is 0.37 hectare, which is one of the lowest in India. (GOI, 2009) The farmers of the State grow a variety of crops. Besides the main crops, wheat and paddy, the State produces pulses, oilseeds, fibre crops, sugarcane, fruits, vegetables and other minor food crops.

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THE rate of growth of the agriculture sector in the last few decades has been poor and is one of the major causes of rural distress. (Dr Manmohan Singh, PM, 2007) In Bihar, there is more disguised employment in the agriculture sector due to limited opportunities for rural non-farm employment leading to lower labour and resources productivity in this sector. The low labour productivity results in higher rates of poverty in the rural areas of the State.

Agricultural labourers/workers constitute the most neglected class in the rural structure. Their income is low and employment irregular. Since they possess no skill or training, they have no alternative employment opportunities. Socially a large number of agricultural workers belong to the SC/ST category. They are not organised and they cannot fight for their rights. Due to all these reasons, their economic lot has failed to improve even after five decades of planning. (Padhi, 2007) The State depends on a faster rate of agricultural growth for its economic development. During the past five decades or so, Bihar could not make significant strides in agricultural development giving the impression that the benefits of the Green Revolution had bypassed it. (Krishna, 1993)

The density of population of the State is three times more than the national average with eight per cent of the country’s population subsisting on three per cent of the area (Government of India, 2001), thus resulting in adverse land-man ratio. The absolute level of poverty continues to be high in Bihar, making it one of India’s poorest States. Both rural poverty at 42.1 per cent and urban poverty at 34.6 per cent were significantly higher than the national average (28.3 per cent for the rural areas and 25.7 per cent for the urban areas) during 2004-05. (Government of Bihar 2008-09) The marginal land holder and individual labour and casual non-farm labour are poor. The percentage of population employed in the agricultural production system in Bihar is much higher than the national average.
Unemployment in rural Bihar is very high as compared to the national level, and that is the main reason of migration in the crucial survival strategy for the rural poor in Bihar—it has the highest rate of gross inter-State out-migration in India. Among the major States, the human development index in Bihar has been the lowest for the last three decades. The literacy rate in Bihar is merely 47 per cent, which is really quite worrisome.

The total foodgrain production in Bihar has significantly increased with a lower rate over the last few decades, especially in the post-Green Revolution period. In 1968-69, it had been 8870 thousand tonnes, which increased to 11,098 thousand tonnes in 2006-07 and further reached 10,508 thousand tonnes in 2009-10. Bihar produced 3599 thousand tonnes of rice and 4570 thousand tonnes of wheat during 2009-10. (GOI, 2012) Against the total geographical area of 93.6 lakh hectares of the State, 76.70 lakh hectares comprise the gross cultivated area. The produc-tion of rice, wheat, maize and pulses in the State happened to be 1120 kg/ha, 2084 kg/ha, 2341 kg/ha and 836 kg/ha during the year 2009-10, while in another major State, Punjab, the figures were 4010 kg/ha, 4307 kg/ha, 3417 kg/ha and 896 kg/ha. In the same year the production of rice, wheat, maize and pulses all over the country reached 2125 kg/ha, 2829 kg/ha, 2024 kg/ha and 630 kg/ha respectively.

It is clear from the present scenario of agri-culture as projected above that the productivity of major crops of the State is much lower than in Punjab, Haryana and other States as well as the country’s overall productivity.

The land ownership pattern in Bihar remains acutely skewed even now. The National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) Report No. 491, 2003, on landholding pattern reveals a disappointing picture. The marginal and small farmers, who constituted 96.5 per cent of the total landowning community, owned 66 per cent of land. The medium and large farmers, who constituted only 3.5 per cent of the landowning community, owned 34 per cent of the land. Of the latter, the large owners (constituting only 0.1 per cent of total) owned 4.63 of total land. In absolute terms, this 0.1 per cent of large owners owned a little over eight lakh hectares or 19.76 lakh acres of land—a colossal amount by Indian standards. Such a high concentration of landholding in the hands of a very small number of owners and with archaic production relations was a major roadblock to increased production and productivity in agri-culture of Bihar. (Bandhyopadhyay, 2009)
Normally, uncertainties are associated with both India and Bihar. In Bihar, in particular, these are attributed to the natural phenomena such as failure of monsoons, floods, droughts etc. In the rural areas, where the farmers are located, the by-products of poverty abound. Disease, malnutrition and poor living conditions are just a few of the effects of poor agricultural performance in subsistence farming. The overemphasis on natural factors by politicians, bureaucracy and agricultural experts for whatever has been happening in the agriculture sector has made it almost impossible to know the real impact of the rural development action in this sector and the livelihood security provided to more than 90 million population of the State.

Without agricultural and rural development industrial growth would either be stultified or create severe internal imbalance in the economy; in the circumstance the problems of widespread poverty, inequality and unemployment would become even more pronounced. The solution to the problems lies not in a few “packages” but in drastic changes in the present economic policies related to agriculture. For this, the government should be ready to take bold steps. Farmers, agricultural labourers and people’s organisations at the civil society level should work collectively to assist and persuade the government to carry out the necessary changes.

The central issue in agricultural development is the necessity to increase productivity, employment and income for the poor segment of the agricultural population of whom the small and marginal farmers constitute a sizable part. Information technology tools, namely, data warehousing, export system and knowledge bases, networking, geographical information system, application of remote sensing data, decision-support system and e-commerce facilitate the farmers to know about the “agricultural situation” in Bihar and accordingly undertake agricultural production

There cannot be any development of the State without improvement in the socio-economic conditions of farmers. The problems of the farmers have so far been addressed in a piecemeal and bureaucratic manner. The programmes and projects launched hang loosely with hardly any interface, synergy between them and these leave out the farmers, the food providers, from the central focus.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bandyopadhyay, D. (2009), ”Lost opportunity in Bihar”, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XLIV, No. 47, November.
Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India.
Economic Survey of Bihar, Department of Finance, 2008-09.
Economic Survey of Bihar, Department of Finance, 2011-12.
National Commission on Farmers and Saving Farming, 2006, Third Report, Government of India.
Krishna, M. (1993), “Bihar: An Assessment of its Agriculture,” The Bihar Journal of Agricultural Marketing, Vol. 1, No. 1.
Padhi, K. (2007), “Agriculture Labour in India- A Close Look”, Orissa Review.
Prasad, J. (2007), Bihar—Dynamics of Development, A Mittal Publication, New Delhi, p. 1.

The author is a Research Scholar, Department of Economics, Punjabi University, Patiala.