The key news that I read about Bihar today was that the government was going to convert most routes reaching Patna from any direction (
Patna to be connected by four-lane roads), would be widened to 4 lane roads. This is indeed good as we are far behind a lot of states where the state capitals are connected by 4 lane or even 6 lane roads from various directions which has been a vehicle for those states prosperity.
However, I had a very basic question as we step through day 2 of year 2013 : How long can we sustain the gdp growth and the growth of the people of Bihar just relying on the road constructions?
We need more longer term avenues through which people can by themselves generate money to sustain their growth. Road construction is just an artificial way of supplementing people's growth but can only be done for sometime. What we really need are other areas and avenues of development which can become a self sustaining and self propelling growth instrument. For this we need the following:
- Power - Dedication and focus in getting Bihar the 5000MWs of power by 2015 that the minister has promised. Looking more granularly, there should be no delays in getting 500MWs of power added to Bihar every 6 months from the beginning of 2013. If anything this should only grow to 1000 MWs or more every 6 months by the end of 2013. (Read Bihar to become power surplus by 2016: Minister)
- Industry - Try as much, we have not seen any real industrial grow in Bihar. The State government has to accord priority and make it attractive for industries and industrial houses to set foot in Bihar. Till now this seems to be lacking. Couple this with the problems of power, it looks like Bihar is going to remain devoid of industries until 2016. Without industries any major growth will be inhibited and the industrial policy has to be made so attractive that the industrial houses are forced to set shop in Bihar even with the problems of power being faced today.
- Tourism - Like I keep mentioning, tourism is the mainstay of immediate growth of Bihar, outside of agriculture and a key focus has to be put to implement all the projects within defined time frames which seems to be not happening at this time. A lot of projects are being announced, but I don't hear any thing on the completion of these projects. Either they are not be announced or they are not getting completed in time. (Example - Tutla waterfalls about which I have written in my article Apathy in taking up Tourism projects)
- Agriculture - Identify ways by which the farmers can be empowered to produce more out of their lands and prosper. Maybe its just spreading education on the advances in the art of farming. Today farmers are the people, who suffer the most in our country and make the least amount of money even though they feed the billion plus people of India.
- Diversification outside of agriculture - Can we look at diversifying into other related areas like honey making, etc which can be done on not so much productive land? I don't know but thats a thought to ponder upon and there would be experts who could answer this question.
There is a lot to be done and miles to go before we can sleep. A strong, focused and motivated bureaucracy and state machinery including the state government is required in order to fulfill the dreams of Biharis. Are we all upto it?
