Key Bihar Statistics

While reading Preeti Mehta’s article “Tales of a Neglected Hinterland” I saw some general demographical statistics and hence decided to explore some more statistics and the findings were interesting.

·         Out of a total area of 94,163 Sq Kms only 1.16% area is urban while the rest is rural.

·         There is one police station for every 110 Sq km area and 1,21,694 people.

·         There are 52.1 % males to 47.9% females i.e. 916 females for every 1000 males . In the age group of 0-6 the statistics seem to be a little better: There are 51.7% males to 48.3% females

Location

Bihar is located in the eastern part of the country (between 83°-30' to 88°-00' longitude). It is an entirely land–locked state, although the outlet to the sea through the port of Kolkata is not far away. Bihar lies mid-way between the humid West Bengal in the east and the sub humid Uttar Pradesh in the west which provides it with a transitional position in respect of climate, economy and culture. It is bounded by Nepal in the north and by Jharkhand in the south. The Bihar plain is divided into two unequal halves by the river Ganga which flows through the middle from west to east.

Physical Features
	Latitude			24°-20'-10" ~ 27°-31'-15" N
	Longitude			82°-19'-50" ~ 88°-17'-40" E
	Rural Area			92,257.51 sq. kms
	Urban Area			1,095.49 sq. kms
	Total Area			94,163.00 sq. kms
	Height above Sea-Level			173 Feet
	Normal Rainfall			1,205 mm
	Avg. Number of Rainy Days			52.5 Days in a Year
Administrative Units
	Divisions			9
	Districts			38
	Sub-Divisions			101
	CD Blocks			534
	Panchayats			8,471
	Number of Revenue Villages			45,103
	Number of Urban Agglomerations			14
	Number of Towns			199
	- Statutory Towns			139
	- Non-Statutory Towns			60
	Police Stations			853
	- Civil Police Stations			813
	- Railway Police Stations			40
	Police Districts			43
	- Civil Police District			39
	- Railway Police District			4
Key Statistics - as per 2011 Census (Provisional)
	Population			10,38,04,637
	- Male			5,41,85,347
	- Female			4,96,19,290
	Population (0~6 Years Group)
	- In Absolute Numbers			1,85,82,229
			Males	96,15,280
			Females	89,66,949
	Literacy
	- In Absolute Numbers			5,43,90,254
			Males	3,27,11,975
			Females	2,16,78,279
	- Percentage of Total Population			63.82%
			Males	73.39%
			Females	53.33%
	Decadal Population Growth (2001-2011)
	- Absolute			2,08,06,128
	- As Percentage			25.07%
	Highest Decadal Growth at		Madhepura District	(30.65%)
	Lowest Decadal Growth at		Gopalganj District	(18.83%)
	Density of Population			1,102 per sq kms
	- Highest Density		Sheohar,	1882 per sq kms
	- Lowest Density		Kaimur,	488 per sq kms
	Most Populous District		Patna:	57,72,804
	Least Populous District		Sheikhpura:	6,34,927
	Sex Ratio (Females/Thousand Males)			916
	- Highest Ratio		(Gopalganj)	1,015
	- Lowest Ratio		Munger and Bhagalpur)	(879
	Highest Literacy Rate		Rohtas,	75.59%
	Lowest Literacy Rate		Purnia,	52.49%
	Average Population of a District			27,31,701

Tales of a Neglected Hinterland

Friends I saw an interesting article which shows how much behind Bihar still is. I thought its a good idea to share this with the group.

Only 62% of Bihar villages have electricity and only 23% homes in villages have electricity. But the worst... average time of electricity in the homes is 4 hours.... Have to see how soon things change.

I am pasting the article here verbatim for people to read. The article is published at Tales of a neglected hinterland  in Business

Tales of a Neglected Hinterland

PREETI MEHRA
Inclusive growth has bypassed UP and Bihar. Poor school attendance and electricity connections bear this out.

Pastel green paddy fields, bullock carts, orange-hued skies and heavily-laden mango trees — these are picture postcard scenes of our rural landscape.

But the romanticism ends right there as you travel through parts of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh and take a peek behind the veneer.

It is clear that not much of ‘liberalisation', ‘globalisation' or even plain ‘development' — the jargon we are all so used to — has touched these parts. In Bihar, the squalor stares you in the face as do feudal and caste prejudices.

If this is how it is under Chief Minster Nitish Kumar, who is said to have brought progress to the State, what must it have been during Lalu Prasad Yadav's regime?

You speak to the children in the villages of West Champaran district — no, they do not go to school regularly, whatever the Bihar Government may claim. Children who do, mostly one or two in a family, complain of the masterji just coming in for two to three hours.

No food, education
When you stop at a Harijan basti and shake hands with the children around, women rush to tell you the caste status of the village. Here, no one raises their hand when asked if they go to school. They are clearly perplexed by such a question.

On the Bihar government Web site, West Champaran district's literacy rate is 39.6 per cent. It has 1,340 primary schools, 284 middle schools and 68 high schools, but, then, what are so many of the children doing out of them? And why have the teenagers dropped out in Class VIII?

The adults, however, are not too bothered how the children are faring. They are much more concerned about the here and now — the price they have to pay for food. “Prices keep climbing and our earnings are not enough,” says Shravan, who is happy about saving half of what he used to spend on kerosene, thanks to CFL light, but not about the price of pulses, meat and milk (which is hardly available).

Prices for specific commodities here are not very different from what they are in the cities. Besides, unlike the cities, people here spend a majority of their income on food.

In Budaun district of Uttar Pradesh, the situation is not very different. Milk may be cheaper than in the Capital by Rs 3 a kg, but pulses that cost Rs 50 per kg in Delhi cost the same here. “It grows in our region, near our village, but the vyapari (traders) hoards it, making us pay such heavy prices,” explains Hirday Pal. The middleman's social profile may have undergone a change, but he is present in one way or the other.
It is also obvious in both States that despite the depravation, families were not growing any smaller. Rekha in Tamkuha village, Bihar, was still struggling to feed six daughters and the youngest, a son. Only two of them were going to school. Shanta in Ujhanni, Uttar Pradesh, had a brood of five, despite the fact that the eldest was a son.

Where have we gone wrong? Does developmental neglect feed population explosion — theories that were not taken seriously enough?

Electricity deficit
The neglect in the two States is too obvious to ignore. When compared with Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, as was done in the India Human Development Survey of households, published in 2010, the question arises as to how “inclusive growth” can be a national goal when even the basics are missing in some states.

Take electricity, for instance. It is estimated some 1,25,000 villages in the country are out of the grid and have no electricity. The Human Development Survey corroborates what you find when travelling in the two States.

The chart culled from the report shows that, by far, the two Hindi heartland States are among the worst off in terms of electricity. While 42 per cent village homes in Uttar Pradesh receive power, in Bihar, it is 23 per cent.

No wonder then that a CFL bulb and a mobile connection means so much to the villagers. The interesting observation is that though a lot of villages in the country have ‘electric connections', these fail to translate into electricity access for households — a phenomenon that needs to be further researched.

Another question it throws up is why some States manage to perform better than the others in providing the basics of electricity, water, roads, education, health and employment.

Besides being a mixture of geographical location, connectivity, demography and caste and religious variations, is it not ultimately the quality of governance that matters?