BIHAR, the second most populous state of India (comprising a little more than 10 per cent of the country’s population), is economically the most backward. Along with a very high proportion of population below the poverty line (40.7 per cent in the 1988-88), Bihar has the lowest per capita income among all the states of India- its per capita income (net GDP at factor cost at current prices) stands at a mere Rs. 2,904 as against Rs.5, 781 for India as a whole and Rs. 9,643 for Punjab [CMIE 1994: Table 10.2]. The state has the lowest literacy rate among the major states of India-38.5 percent as against the national average of 52 percent and Kerala’ state of 91 percent. It has a very high child mortality rate and also fares very badly with respect to most of the other socio-economic indicators of development.

This acute poverty and backwardness can be traced to the backwardness of both its agricultural and industrial sectors. Among the major states of India it has the lowest per capita (rural) income (net value added from agriculture)- Rs. 948 (average of 1987-88 to 1989-90) as against Rs. 1522 for India as a whole and Rs. 3,929 for Punjab [CMIE1994: Table 7.2]. The reasons for the extreme backwardness of agriculture are both institutional and technological. Where as structural and institutional factors have been operating as a powerful barrier to the agrarian transformation, the technological factors such as poor development of infrastructure like irrigation and power, non-availability of modern inputs, low value of credit and poor extension services, etc. have also contributed much to the dismal performance of the state’s agricultural sector¹. Though some big industries mostly in the public sector, are located in Bihar, the sluggish rate of growth in agriculture did not produced the spread effects of these industries, and hence industrially also the state continues to be backward, even though it possesses about one-fourth of the mineral resources of the country. Per capita net value added in the manufacturing factory sector in Bihar was only Rs. 305 in 1989-9 0 (at current prices) as against Rs. 514 for India as a whole and as high as Rs. 1,266 for Maharashtra [CMIE 1994: Table 8.7]. The major explanation of the state’s backwardness and poverty, however, has to be traced to the rural sector. With about 87 percent of the population in rural areas (as against 74.3 percent for India as a whole), it is the most rural state in the country, next only to Assam. Further, about 46 percent of the state income (average of 1986-87 to 1988-89) is derived from agriculture (and allied activities), as against about 34 percent for India as a whole and about 23 percent of Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.

Floods in large parts of the plains of Bihar, especially in north Bihar, are recurring features and cause havoc destroying crops and the quality of land, and threatening the conditions of life and livestock due to large-scale displacement. Few Flood control measures have been effectively implemented. Some of the districts in the south Bihar plains and plateau region are drought-prone with poor irrigation facilities. Though the overall percentage of net area irrigated in Bihar is about 38, irrigation is largely seasonal and protective. Waterlogging in substantial parts of the command area of north Bihar is a chronic problem.

One of the obvious reasons for the economic backwardness and poverty of Bihar economic backwardness and poverty of Bihar is its high density of population (497 persons per sq. km in 1991), the third highest in the country after West Bengal and Kerala. The average per capita operational holding in the state is 0.87 hectare (in 1985-86) as against 1.7 hectare for India as a whole and about 2.8 hectares for Punjab. About three-fourths of the operational holdings are marginal (less than one hectare) in which the average size is merely 0.31 hectare. But the population pressure on land in the region is not as acute as the population density would indicate. In contrast to some other poverty stricken and backward regions of the country, such as part of central India where the natural productivity of agricultural land is very low, Bihar has a large alluvial river valley area; moreover, the plateau region in the southern part of the state is extremely rich in minerals. In view of such generous natural resource endowment, it seems that the state’s backwardness is probably more related to its socio-economic-political structures, unresponsive political leadership, and the nature of development strategies that the state has pursued so far. Apart from the exploitative social and agrarian structure. Bihar is also experiencing an acute crisis of political leadership, bureaucratic inefficiency, and rampant corruption at all levels, and social disorder. The almost total collapse of the administrative machinery-once hailed by the British cabinet secretary in the Apple by report even after independence as the best-organised in India-is matched by the calamitous condition of the educational institutions [Das 1993:79]. There have been no Panchayat Elections for more than two decades. The division of society into caste has penetrated not only into politics but also in to the bureaucracy, academics and other professions, seriously affecting the efficiency and functioning of the entire system of governance, development machinery and other sector. Castes tension, and in some parts of the state even caste riots, have seriously eroded social harmony. The serious breakdown of the law and order machinery and the scenario of crimes, kidnapping, tensions and violence have prompted people to sarcastically remark that the state has withered away’ in Bihar.

These conditions have created to an extent a socio-economic milieu of non-development. The era of planned economic development in the state has hardly cared for the masses, but only for organised sector workers, particularly the government/semi-government employees, while the elites, including professionals, contractors, politicians and power brokers, have fattened themselves in the ‘development’ process. The prevailing socio-economic situation is so alarming that it is being described as the ‘state without hope’ and the ‘graveyard of development projects that achieve success elsewhere’. In the wake of widespread poverty, a substantial number of poor people go outside the state in search livelihood. In several parts of the state, the poor have become restive-in central Bihar poor peasant and agricultural labourers have launched a powerful movement against their oppression. Thus, Bihar is not only poor and economically backward but is also a state where institutional barriers of all types-socio-economic, political, cultural, etc-are quite strong. A sympathiser of the cause of Bihar even goes to the extent of saying "the state is not only suffering from culture of poverty, but also from poverty of culture".

Before we proceed to discuss the extent and profile of poverty, we should remember that the state is far from homogeneous with regard to the distribution of its natural resources and growth patterns. It is divided into two distinct topographical units-the plains and the plateau. The plains region, which is almost flat and alluvial, slopes gently towards the east. This region is divided by the river Ganga into two unequal parts-northern Bihar plains and south plains.

North Bihar plain is very fertile and constitutes about 31 percent of the area of the state. It has a number of big rivers and is afflicted occasionally by heavy floods, causing huge damage to crops and property. The area is heavily populated- the density of population in this region is one of the highest in the country. The area is predominantly rural, the urban population being only about 6 percent. In recent decades, a few islands of industrial growth such as the Barauni complex have come up; otherwise, the economy lacks diversification. The infrastructural facilities are extremely meagre. Large disparities in irrigation power consumption, rail and road communications, etc. persist vis-à-vis the other regions of the state. It is no wonder, therefore, that north Bihar is an area of endemic poverty, backwardness and unemployment. Consequently, this region sends a large number of migrant labourers from its rural areas to places such as Punjab, Haryana and Delhi.

The south Bihar plans, constituting 21 percent of the total area is not subject to frequent floods, except for lands on the banks of rivers. This region is more diverse than the north Bihar plans. It has the lowest rainfall of the three regions. It is considerably more urbanised than the northern plans, the level of urbanisation being about 15 percent. The position in regard to infrastructure is also better. Though it is comparatively more industrialised than north Bihar, the level is still quite low. A large part of the rural area of this region is currently witnessing the radical peasant and labour movement leading to considerable violence and turmoil.

The Chhotanagpur plateau region has undulating topography and does not suffer from floods and drought to the extent of other parts of Bihar. But its land is not fertile and barely 30 percent of the total land is used for crop production, as compared to 50 percent in the state as a whole. Forests account for 29.2 percent of the total area. Poorly served by irrigation (about 10 percent) its agriculture is carried out almost entirely under rain-fed conditions. The plateau, however, is richly endowed with natural resources. Almost 90 percent of the minerals found in Bihar are located in this region and have given rise to a number of mines and metal based industries. The level of urbanisation in the region is 20.3 percent-much higher than the two other regions. This area also has a high concentration of scheduled tribes, as much as 92 percent of the state’s 6.6 million scheduled tribes. On the other hand, the scheduled castes, although found in sizeable numbers everywhere, are generally concentrated in north Bihar which has about 60 percent of the scheduled caste population of the state. Though there has been development of industries in the plateau region, the conditions of the local tribals have not improved appreciably. They feel alienated due to a number of factors-cultural economic and social. Consequently this region is presently facing a somewhat powerful movement by tribals to separate this region from Bihar and create a new state known as Jharkhand’.

Bihar is among the states in India where the incidence of poverty is most acute. According to official estimates the state had the highest incidence of poverty in 1983-84, with half of its population below the poverty line. In 1987-88 about two-fifths of the state’s population was below poverty line, which, except for Orissa, was the highest in the country. Some unofficial estimates, however, point to an even higher incidence of poverty in the state. In one such estimate by Minhas, Jain and Tendulkar (1991), it was reported to be as high as 65 percent in 1987-88. In this estimate, the state had not only the highest proportion of population below the poverty line till 1983-84. Even after 1983-94 the decline was higher elsewhere in India than in Bihar. As revealed in Table 1, during the period 1957-58 to 1973-74 the percentage of rural population below the poverty line in India declined from 53.4 to 47.6 but in Bihar the decline was almost negligible-from 59.7 to 58.4. During the century’s worst drought in Bihar in 1966-67, the calorie consumption of about three-fourths of the rural population was below the normative minimum. During 1977-84, while the rural population in poverty decreased by 10.8 percentage points in India, the corresponding decrease was only 6.4 percentage points in Bihar. However, during the period 1983-84 and 1987-88 the decline in poverty in Bihar, as per official estimate, was comparable to the all India estiamtes-8.7 percent to 7.0, respectively. This relatively better performance of Bihar has put the state in second place (after Orissa) now with regard to the incidence of poverty.

There are several factors behind the recent decrease in poverty level in the state. First, the growth of agricultural output has been relatively better since the mid-1980s, largely due to better weather conditions and to some extent to an increase in the use of modern inputs. Second, remittances from migrants working outside the state, which have become quite significant, have contributed to increased consumption expenditure as well as investment in cultivation. Third, various poverty alleviation programmes, notably IRDP, NREP and RLEGP, have had their albeit small-share in this development.

Contrary to the high incidence of poverty, the unemployment rate as per time criteria is quite low in the state. According to the 43^rd NSS round of 1987-88, the unemployment rate is per usual status in rural areas of Bihar was 2.6 percent for males and 0.8 for females: the corresponding all India rates being 2.8 and 3.5 percent respectively. Several states 9i.e. Assam Haryana, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, and a few others) had higher unemploymen rates than Bihar. However, the underemployment rates among both males and females of 14.6 and 12.3 percent reespectively in 1987-88 were the second highest in the country after. Tamil Nadu-much higher than the all India rates of 9.8 and 6.0 for males and females respectively [Ministry of Labour 1991:47]. Thus, though people in rural areas are not openly unemployed, due to their poverty they do not find regular productivity employment over the year, which promotes large number to migrate to other regions in search of livelihood. The state reports high year-to-year fluctuations in the availability of employment opportunities, thanks to floods and droughts. Thus Bihar suffers from a low productivity employment problem in the key agricultural sector rather than unemployment as usually measured in terms of persondays. The incidence of poverty among a large section of self-employed cultivators belonging to marginal and small and categories is so high² that they will join the category of paid workers, leaving their farms work, if suitable work opportunities are offered to them.

Table 2 shows retrogression in the employment structure in the state. The share of the primary sector has gone up from 80.23 percent in 1961 to 82.36 percent in 1991. The share of the secondary sector declined sharply from 8.28 percent in 196. In fact, as shown in Table 2, even the absolute numbers employed in this sector decreased from 15.72 lakh in 1991. Bihar has a low percentage of workers engaged in rural non-farm activities-20 percent in 1987-88 compared to 46 percent for states like Kerala. Further, in India as a whole rural non-farm employment has significantly expanded during the 1970s and 1980s. However, Bihar is one of the few states where the expansion has been extremely low-between 1983 and 1987-88, there has been hardly any growth in non-farm employment [Chadha 1993]. Thus, more and more rural workers have had fewer days of work per year. Such a situation implies severe distress because of very low rates of growth of the agricultural sector leading to substantial out-migration of labour to seek employment in other areas both within the outside of the state.³

Bihar has a substantial proportion of labour housesholds in rural areas-one of the highest in the country and substantially higher than the national average. In 1987-88, 44.2 percent of the workforce in rural areas was engaged in wage labour. There has been a steady growth in the incidence of wage labour since the early 1970s- from 39.5 percent of the work force in 1972-73 it increased to 40.9 percent in 1977-78, to 42.8 per cent in 1983 and 44.2 percent in 1987-88. As in other states, three has been a phenomenal increase in casualisation of rural labour. In 1972-73 the proportion of casual wage labour to total wages labour was 60 percent, which increased to 80 percent in 1987-88. Agricultural labourers constitute about 93 percent of all the rural labour households- the state has the second highest incidence of agricultural labourers in India after Andhra Pradesh.

The wage rates of agricultural laboureres are low in Bihar. In 1987-88 the daily wage rate of unskilled male agricultural labourer was Rs. 13.39, which was lower than in most other states. The long-team growth rate in wage rates in Bihar for male agriculatural labour over a 30 years period (between 1958-59 and 1987-88) was 8.68 percent this growth rate in lower than only two states-kerala and Rajasthan. However, Bihar had a much lower base (Rs. 1.30) level wage rate compared to states like, Punjab. Not only money wage, but real wages in the state. Both for male and female agricultural labourers have risen since the early 1970s (Table 3). The rise in real wages has been really phenomenal and between. 1970-71 and 1988-89, a 56.1 percent increase took place in the case of male labourers, 7.8 in the case of female labourers [Jose 1988], which are quite impressive in comparison to other states -both high wage and low wage states. The rise in real wages has been particularly pronounced during the 1980s. There are a number of factors behind this rise. Apart from the relatively better performance of the agricultural sector. Changes in rural labour market conditions due to out-migration of workers as well as state intervention through wage employment programmes have been the major factors behind it. Besides, in large parts of the state radical movement of the agricultural labourers have been a very important factor behind the rise in wages.

The estimate of poverty in Bihar discussed earlier is based on NSS expenditure data. However, there are many other dimensions of poverty line calorie intake, housing, health education., household possessions, assets, etc. which can provide a more comprehensive understanding of the problem. A survey conducted by the ANS, Institute of Social Studies in collaboration with the ILO enables us to examine the issue in some details. This survey was conducted during 1981-82 in a stratified random sample of 12 villages in the plans of Bihar. ⁴

The analysis of survey data on food and nutrition indicators of poverty shows that calorie intake exhibits distinct variations across socio-economic groups, but appears to be less reliable than other measures of nutritional intake and anthropometric status. Nearly 50 to 70 per cent of landless wage labourers fall below recommended intake levels. Food quality indicators were more strongly associated with class, but only the richest groups have frequent intake of eggs. Meat, fish and fruit. These food intake differences showup clearly in differences in anthropometric status. In particular, stunting is much more frequent among agricultural labourers than among other groups, Girls tended to be stunted more than boys.

The distribution of housing and domestic facilities was highly unequal among different social classes. Pucca houses are almost entirely absent among wage labourers, and the difference in house value between top and bottom groups is by a factor of 30. Electricity for lighting is rage (2 percent of households). Treating kerosene lamps as an acceptable minimum, it was found that only around 10 per cent of agricultural labour households obtain this level, while for more other groups the figure reaches 40 percent, only approaching 100 percent for the top groups in the class and land hierarchies. The ownership of domestic assets is extremely low over a quarter report on assets at all (other than cooking utensils, etc.). Only 15 percent of the households own a mosquito net, 25 per cent a torch, 15 percent a bicycle, and 10 percent a radio.

Note: Figures in brackets show the percentage share of the sector to total.

Source: Census of India, 1961, 1971, 19811991.

Source: Jose (1988).

Total expenditure is less unequally distributed. Clothing and medicine dominate expenditure by the poorest groups, who obtain credit on the worst terms, interest rates averaging 50 percent. Landless agricultural labourers own less than 1.5 saris on average, i.e., the majority of women in landless labour households own only one. Another index, which catches attention, is the ownership of a blanket or quilt. Winters and cold is essential. In the bottom expenditure groups 60 percent of households have no blanket at all, few households have better than a cotton quilt in lower expenditure groups, and only a quarter in the top groups.

Data on child mortality show a distinct decline with increasing economic status, and female death rates are over 50 per cent higher than that of males. The high mortality of agricultural labourers shows up clearly- about 20 percent for boys and over 30 percent for girls. The regional differences are also reflected in mortality. The advanced areas of north-west Bihar have much lower mortality than average. It is worth noting the very high mortality of scheduled caste children.

Schooling is almost completely lacking for women and averages a more respectable four years for men. In agricultural labour households, girls receive practically no schooling. Permanent labour households do particularly badly, no doubt reflecting the opportunities for early child labour in such households.

The distribution of total value of all assets (except grain) among various classes shows that agricultural labourers along with the non-agricultural classes are not only at the bottom, but the difference between these classes and big peasants as well as landlords is extremely wide. As a matter of fact, the non-agricultural class is placed even worse than the agricultural labourers. The difference in the value of total assets between the non-agricultural classed and landlords is about 16 times. It is also noticed that female-headed households have a lower value of assets compared to male-headed households, pointing the vulnerability of such households. The survey has shown that assets have a very strong association with poverty.

Indebtedness from traditional sources is widely prevalent in rural Bihar, and the incidence is particularly high among agricultural labourers -about 85 percent for casual labourers and 88 percent for high interest loans are seldom able to repay their debts. This often leads to debt bondage due to their current consumption, exceptional social expenditure and health expenditure. In regards to loans from institutional sources, the level is not only low in Bihar, but such loan have been mainly grabbed by the upper classed and big landowners.

Female-headed households are found to be relatively poorer. Scheduled castes are invariably poor, followed by Muslims and backward castes. Attached labourers who constitute about one-third of total labour, are relatively more poor than casual wage labourers are generally of scheduled castes.

The rate of economic growth in Bihar has been slow from the very beginning. In 1960-61 Bihar was at the bottom among all the states of India in terms of per capita income. At present also it is at the bottom but with increased distance-in 1960-61. Bihar’s per capita income was about two-thirds of India’s average per capita income; it declined to less than half towards the late 1980s [Mathur, 1994]. Bihar’s rate of growth during 1960-85 was 2.43 percent, which after adjusting for the rate of population growth of s only a 35 per capita income since the 1960s.

This dismal performance of Bihar becomes more glaring when the performance of its agricultural sector is taken into account.⁵ After independence the state witnessed a moderate rate of agricultural production- during 1952-53 to 1964-65 it was 2.97 percent per annum, which was better than many other states including Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal [Prasad 1987:15]. The rate of growth of foodgrains production was even higher than the national average-it was 3.05 per cent in Bihar against 2.50 percent for India as a whole. Between 1969-70 and 1983-84, the annual growth of agricultural production in Bihar came down to 0.42 per cent per annum [Prasad 1987:15]. Between 1970-73 and 1980-83 the compound annual rate of growth of foodgrains production was negative (0.3). However since the middle of 1980s there has been some improvement in agricultural performance. As such the compound annual rate of growth in foodgrains production between 1980-83 and 1990-93 has been 2.33 per cent. The growth rate (compound) in agricultural production during 1980-90 has been of the order of 1.5 per cent per annum [CMIE 1994: Tables 7.1 and 7.4]. The very low growth rate in agricultural has been the main factor behind the persistence of poverty on a large scale. Due to the sluggish rate of growth in agriculture, the state, in spite of having some big industries that were established in the 1950s and 1960s, did not experience their spread effects. ‘Bihar, which had achieved an average annual rate of growth of 18 per cent in industrial employment during 1951-61, slid down to 0.7 per cent per year during 1961-81. As discussed earlier, there has been a further retrogression in employment structure since then, particularly since the early 1980s-there has been an absolute declined in secondary sector employment. The primary sector has absorbed this displacement of workers from the secondary sector, and consequently the percentage of workers employed in the primary sector has increased during 1981-91.

Notes: H= Heard about the scheme; B= Benefited from the Scheme; ALNT= Agricultural labour, not tied; ALT= Agricultural Labour, tied; PMP= Poor-middle- Peasants; PB=Big Presents; LLORD= Landlords and gentlemen farmers; MONAG=Non- Agricultural

Source: Prasad et al (1989), Chapter 9.

There are many factors behind economic stagnation in the state-the exploitative agrarian structure, lack of consolidation of landholdings, poor irrigation and water management, inadequate credit and extension services, lack of industrial culture, etc. Often, inadequate assistance by the central government and various agencies like banks and other financial institutions are also cited as reasons for the continuing backwardness of Bihar. However, it appears that most of the factors behind the state’s backwardness are rooted in the failure of its political leadership and administrative apparatus to take the state along the path of social and economic development. Bihar was able to develop moderately up to the 1960s because the quality of the political leadership and administrative efficiency was reasonably good. It is a widely shared view that the quality of political leadership and administration has deteriorated since then, and at present it is probably at the lowest ebb in the country. No doubt, the state has an acute shortage of investible resources like every poor economy, but the utilisation of even these meagre resources has been utterly disappointing. In fact, it is widely believed that there has been a plunder of the meagre resources of the state on a large scale, affecting its interest much more than other states of India. Though there has been of systematic and detailed documentation of this phenomenon in Bihar, many of the facts clearly points to this.⁶

In Bihar a peculiar brand of political class emerged. These political ‘buccaneers’ had only one agenda, i.e. to grab political power and corner the maximum funds meant for development. One of the essentials to rise up the political pyramid in the quickest time was to forge links with the crime syndicate. With the passage of time this process has accelerated- the criminalisation of politics, politicisation of crime and politicisation of the bureaucracy have taken place at an alarming rate. The venom of crastism has spread to every walk of life. Almost invariably postings in bureaucracy are done on a caste and money basis, which has seriously affected its moral and efficiency. Almost all the co-operative credit institutions of the state were captured by vested interests and they were twice superseded by the government. Not to talk of the provision of extension services by co-operative and other institutions, spurious inputs were distributed to the farmers. Many research studies have shown that there is gross misutilisation and malfunctioning in the distribution of credit, and the marginal and small farmers have been grossly discriminated against. The co-operative movement has served the interests of the strong only [Nilkant and Das 1979:34]. A major section of the bureaucracy is an active collaborator of this loot and political corruption.

This and practice of popular and sectarian politics have led the state to a state of financial bankruptcy. Huge finds are spent on the salaries of the big army of government and semi-government employees.⁷ Not only this, due to the inability and inefficiency of the political and bureaucratic system for the last several years, the st ate has not been able to utilise all the funds allocated to it in the annual plans. Now, for the last three years the States financial position has been so precarious that even the salaries of the university teachers and other semi-government employees have not been paid for the last several months. The state has been spending without caring to raise enough resources. Consequently, it has witnessed massive reductions in the plan outlays during the last few years. The annual plan of the Rs. 2,200 crore during 1992-93 was almost halved; the plan outlay during the 1993-94 would not be more than Rs. 1,200 crore, and it is feared that in 1994-95 it would be further curtailed. Though the lower per capita plan assistance, meagre disbursement of funds by financial institutions, irrational royalty policies and other federal transfers are also responsible for the state’s financial crisis, the major share of the blame lies with the state government.

Further, there is an acute power crisis in the state. Except Patna, all other places are without power for the major part of the day, seriously affecting agricultural and industrial activities. Capacity utilisation of the thermal power plants has been extremely low, and losses of the Bihar state electricity board and enormous.

Source and Index: As in Table 4

Due to the acute financial crisis and wrong policies and priorities, the development activities in the state, at least so far as the state’s development expenditure is concerned, have come almost to a halt. Even the funds meant for the central government poverty alleviation schemes like Jawahar Rojgar Yojana have been reported to have been diverted temporarily to met the salaries of its employees, affecting the implementation of these schemes. However, with all their defects in design and implementation, in the prevailing acute financial crisis, it is mostly the poverty alleviation programmes like the Integrated Rural Development Programme and Jawahar Rojgar Yojana (JRY) which are somewhat visible in the name of development activities in present day Bihar. Ironically, even such a big financial crisis does not deter the government from setting up new universities and administrative centres (like district, sub-division, block, etc.) which are mainly done due to political and caste considerations. The state has failed to almost all fronts to deliver the goods to the people, particularly the poor.

Source: CMIE (1994: Table 9.14)

In the wake of acute poverty and immiseration, the poor of the state, particularly the rural poor, have adopted their own survival strategies and responses. One response is the substantial out-migration of the rural poor to other areas-both rural and urban and inside and outside the state in search of livelihood. As yet another response, the state has witnessed a relatively powerful movement (the so-called extremist or naxalite movement) by the rural; poor during the last two decades or so, generating violence and tension.

Such a vulgarisation of politics and administration, and the nexus between corrupt politicians, bureaucrats, contractors and criminals, have played havoc with not only the development programmes in general, but also with programmes specifically meant for the benefit of the poor, Immediately after independence, no major programme for poverty alleviation was launched in the state as such except a few minor welfare programmes for the poor like the old age pension scheme in the mid-1970s. As in other states, schemes like Food for Work, NREP, etc. were also launched. The public distribution system was operative earlier but it coverage was increased since the 1970s. At present the central government-sponsored Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) and JRY are the two most important direct poverty alleviation programmes in the state. But the programmes of old age pension and a few minor welfare programmes are still in operation. There are other programmes like land reforms, public distribution system (PDS), etc., which are not targeted specifically to the poor but have relevance for them. It will be interesting to see the overall impact of some programmes and their implications for the poor.

After independence, Bihar was the first state in the country to abolish the zamindari system-the much-hated stratum of intermediaries between the actual tillers and the state was removed and the tillers came into direct contact with the state. However, though zamindari was abolished, the former zamindars were not deprived of their homesteads and private lands, which were quite larger. Therefore the measure of zamindari abolition was complemented with the imposition of a ceiling on large holdings in order to redress the inequitious distribution of land. After many hurdles, the first land-ceiling act was passed in 1962 with subsequent amendments in 1972 and 1973. Some legislative measures to safeguard the interests of the tenants with regard to the fixation or rent and ejection of tenants were also undertaken. There were a few other agrarian legislations too-the Bihar Privileged persons Homestead Tenancy Act, the Bihar Moneylenders Act, etc.,-which were enacted for the benefit of rural labour and the poor.

But the implementation of these various legislative pro-poor agrarian measures has been rather dismal. The most glaring cases are those of the land ceiling and tenancy acts. Till 1990 only 192.1 thousand hectares of land had been declared surplus, of which only 152.2 thousand hectares have been taken possession of and 102.6 thousand hectares have been actually distributed (most of which are said to be low quality land). There is large-scale violation of ceiling laws in the state. The principal reason for non-implementation of the ceiling laws has been the lack of political will and collusion of the bureaucracy with landlords. Large scale ‘Benami’ transfer in land has taken place landlords have resorted to litigation, which generally takes so much time that the very essence of the measure is defeated. A study conducted in 1986]. According to this study only 1.53 per cent of the cultivable land was acquired and distributed, whereas the surplus land amounted to 20.51 per cent. The implementation was not uniform. In four villages where the study was conducted, the government did not initiative any action at all, not even a notice for submitting a return of surplus land was served to the owners. Further, the government functionaries showed favour to landowners in classification of land and areas so that the extent of surplus land shown remained lower than the actual. The study showed that the bigger landowners enjoyed better accommodation by the government functionaries than the smaller ones.

There has been large-scale violation of ceiling act [Pandey 1992]. Another study (LBSNAA 1991a] also found very inadequate implementation of the ceiling laws in Katihar, East Champaran and West Champaran districts where there is wide scope for acquiring much more surplus land. In district of Purnea alone there were 210 landowners with more than 200 acres. Though the allottees of surplus ceiling land should be overwhelmingly from the SCs and STs, in actual practice ‘other castes’ constituted 48 per cent in number and 38 percent in total area allotted. It is significant that in all such cases where cultivable lands were allotted, there has been some perceptible change in the socio-economic status of the allottees. They felt more confident and partly relieved from the clutches of the landlords. Provision of land, however small, has given them a sense of identity and something on which they can fall back. However, the average extent of land allotted was less than one acre, which is not economically viable. Those who were allotted uncultivable land were miserable. The facilities of irrigation, lending and rural development scheme were not well integrated with the allotments.

Tenancy reform remains an important question in Bihar because the state has a fairly significant proportion of cultivated land reporting tenancy. Though the overall tenancy rate has been reported to be of the order of 10 per cent as per NSS data of 1980-81, several studies have shown that the plans of Bihar, particularly north-east Bihar, has a high incidence of tenancy. A study conducted in 1981-83 showed that about 28 per cent of the cultivated land in the plains of Bihar were under tenancy [Prasad 1987] (the tribal region of the state shows a very low level of tenancy). A recent study [LBSNAA 1991b] in 15 villages spread over 12 districts reveals that the high incidence of tenancy is not only characteristic of areas with higher irrigation intensity but is equally characteristic of unirrigated land. The tenants are usually labourers, poor peasants and marginal farmers, although under the demographic pressures and due to some other factors small cultivators have also started leasing in land. Many researchers have highlighted the inter-linkage between landholdings, sharecropping and bondage leads to the process of economic stagnation in the countryside and immiseration of the poor.

The study by LBSNAA (1991b) showed that the principal from the tenancy in the state is sharecropping in which the majority of tenants equally share the gross produce with landowners. However, there were important deviations from this principal pattern in many parts of the state- in some ceases there is prevalence of rack-renting in which the tenants bear the entire input cost and share the produce equally. In some other cases though the tenants share the inputs costs with landlords, the landowners receive between 50 and 75 percent of the gross produce leading to a highly exploitative rent. In some parts of the state, particularly in the irrigated tracts, the system of fixed rent in kind or cash is also prevalent.

The statutory provision with regard to rent is 25 per cent of the gross produce, and the by-products are to remain entirely with sharecroppers. Thus, except in some isolated cases, there is a large gap between what is statutorily provided and what the sharecroppers get. The system of tenancy is almost entirely concealed and informal and hence there is no security of tenure. The majority have their plots changed with in a years or two thereby denying them the status of occupancy tenants, in spite of the fact that a very high proportion of tenants have worked as tenants for more than 10 years with the same landowner. The pitiable condition of tenants, both with regard to rent and security of tenure, has hardly been the largest of any intervention by the government machinery. The experience in the state shows that the law and the administrative machinery have not worked. The sharecroppers are in very weak bargaining position vis-à-vis landowners. Though in some limited areas like Madhubani and parts of central Bihar sharecroppers have asserted their rights and after their prolonged struggles have been able to secure better terms, in large parts of the state tenants are vulnerable as they have neither the economic strength nor faith in the justice system. The legal procedures are so clumsy, time consuming, expensive and biased towards landlords that tenants simply cannot resort to them. Further, the tenants are required to furnish documentary evidence of their cultivating the tenanted land, which they are simply unable to provide, as tenancy agreements are entirely oral and informal. Over and above this, and move by the tenants to get justice is met with resistance by the combination of landlords, police state machinery. In regard to other aspects of tenancy reforms i.e., homestead and susfrucmortage, their implementation is slightly better. According to the study by Prasad (1986), the land reform measures related to homestead land were implemented with good success, and the debt redemption legislation had also achieved better success in its objectives-about 54 per cent of households had received relief.

Thus, the implementation of the various land reform measures has been very slow and unsatisfactory. The main reasons for poor implementation are lack of political will lack of organisation and consciousness among he poor peasants and agricultural labourers, the indifferent attitudes and red-tapism of the bureaucracy, lack of up-to-date land records, and legal obstacles in land laws. Fortunately some parts of the state have shown some awakening among rural labourers and poor peasants and there has been effective mobilisation of peasants in recent years. It is reported that this has influenced the course of implementation of land reform laws in such areas:

Public Distribution System:

Though PDS does not cover only the poor. The dependence of the poor on it is very large. Further, some of the commodities like poor. Not only is there large-scale corruption in the distribution of these commodities to the poor, but the coverage of PDS is also extremely low, only confined to some pockets of urban areas. The data collected by NSSO (1990) show that in rural Bihar the percentage of outlay on purchase from PDS to total purchase was 0.42 in case of rice and 1.51 in case of what; the corresponding figures for urban areas were 0.29 and 7.05. This is an extremely disappointing performance in view of the fact that in states like Kerala the percentage purchase from PDS to total purchase of rice and wheat are 51.36 and 92.04 in rural areas and 46.19 and 91.98 in urban areas respectively. In fact, Bihar’s performance is the worst among all the states.

The above mentioned study conducted by ILO and the ANS Institute of Social Studies between 1981 and 1983 in the plans of Bihar throws considerable light on the unsatisfactory working of the poverty alleviation programmes (PAP). The awareness and benefits derived from the ten policies related to PAP are presented in Tables 4 and 5.

Old age pension scheme: this scheme aimed to give pensions of Rs. 30 per month to old people in the low-income groups, who do not have significant sources of income. Knowledge of the scheme was very widespread- only in one out of six districts studies⁸ the percentage of people aware of the programmes fell below 75 per cent. Moreover, this policy was relatively successful in reaching the poor-over 30 per cent of scheduled castes, over 25 per cent of agricultural labourers, over 30 per cent of Muslims (predominantly agricultural labourers), poor middle peasants and non-agriculturists (the latter mainly low income), and 27 per cent of landless, had benefited from the programme. If one takes into account the fact that many households do not have an eligible older member, this implies quite a large coverage. However, there was a significant number of beneficiaries among the big peasants and landlords and landed classes who were outside its scope. So the targeting of the poor was far from perfect. About one out of eight of those who cultivate more than 10 acres of land also got the old age pension.

Employment schemes: there have been many schemes of rural works, some in the context of flood or drought relief, some as part of larger national anti-poverty programmes designed to provide employment to agricultural labourers. The employment schemes had much less impact, awareness was moderate (33 per cent) and mainly concentrated, in two districts and in larger peasant and landlord households Benefits were concentrated in one backward district (about 12 per cent) in one village and 5 per cent in the second, and although beneficiaries were generally from the lower part of the class hierarchy including middle peasants as well as agricultural labour, they formed only a small part of the sample population as a whole. Its impact was thus almost negligible.

Antyodaya: Awareness of this scheme exceeded 20 per cent in only three villages out of 12 villages studied and was essentially concentrated among the village elite (Brahmins: 40 per cent), Gains from the scheme were negligible, and it benefited mainly middle and big peasants and landlords and not the poorer groups who were the ostensible target. The benefited largely went to those who were cultivating more than 5 acres or even more than 10 acres of land. This policy was implemented in a manner, which went against its very objectives.

Schooling subsidy: Under this programme a series of scholarships and subsidies for scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other underprivileged groups were to be offered by the education ministry. Only about a quarter of the population had heard of schooling subsidies and scholarships and only 3 per cent of households had benefited. On the whole, benefits went to the better off groups.

Nutritional programmes: This had hardly nay impact at all as it was operational only in three out of 12 sample villages, and outside these villages even awareness was low. The pattern of gain was slightly worse than that for schooling subsidies in so far as the poor are concerned. However, neither this programme nor the schooling subsidy was meant exclusively for the poor.

Land reforms: Knowledge of and benefits from land reforms were again concentrated in only two district, with the knowledge highest among landlords. The proportion benefiting was very small, and it was concentrated in both agricultural labour and big peasant classes, with landlords also sharing that accrued under this heading, the highest gains were recorded by those households cultivating more than five acres-a serious outcome for a policy that was supposed to be transferring land to those with few assets. It is clear that the norms laid down for the distribution of land were largely flouted.

Table 10: Results of Block-Level Evaluation of IRDP in Bihar

Source: Complied from the evaluation reports of the department of rural development, government of Bihar.

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