Bihar poorest? No, says Nitish minister

By Dheeraj Kumar | NT

Patna: A minister in Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s cabinet Ashok Choudhary, on Monday asked NITI Aayog to reveal its criteria for placing Bihar as the poorest state of the country in its Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI).

“We (Nitish government) have worked for 15 years and if it (NITI Aayog) is telling us we have failed, we will debate the criteria used for preparing the report,” Choudhary told newspersons outside Bihar assembly on the first day of its winter session.

“If a student obtains 90 percent (in the examination) and the professor calls him an illiterate student, the student will protest,” Choudhary remarked in the same vein. He also gave a strong rebuttal to leader of opposition and RJD leader Tejaswi Yadav, “he (Tejaswi) is not an educated person, he has no knowledge, and he has received a NITI Aayog report and is now making an issue out of it.”

The first ever Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) prepared by the central government’s think tank NITI Aayog has described 51.91 per cent of the Bihar’s population as being multidimensionally poor. Niti Aayog’s MPI is calculated using 12 primary indicators - sanitation, drinking water, electricity, child and adolescent mortality, antenatal care, years of schooling, school attendance, nutrition, cooking fuel, housing, assets and bank account – grouped under three dimensions of health, education and standard of living. According to Niti Aayog report, Bihar has the highest proportion of multidimensionally poor people, followed by Jharkhand at 42.16 per cent and Uttar Pradesh at 37.79 per cent. Leader of Opposition in Bihar Assembly and RJD leader Tejaswi Yadav has clapped back at the NDA government in the state calling it a ‘trouble engine’ government and not ‘double-engine’ government. NITI Aayog’s report shows that Bihar has failed on all fronts –whether it is education, health or employment. As socio-economic development of an economy is directly linked to urbanisation, Bihar’s youths do not find employment locally