Bihar most backward state, says Centre; RJD slams CM Nitish Kumar

According to a report, the Centre in Parliament today informed that Bihar is India’s most backward state. However, the report has led to political controversy in the state as the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is part of the Nitish Kumar-led government. The government was responding to a question in the Lok Sabha by Rajeev Ranjan Singh, an MP of Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal United (JDU) and the party’s leader in parliament.

The government was responding to a question in the Lok Sabha by Rajeev Ranjan Singh, an MP of Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal United (JDU) and the party’s leader in parliament.

Mr Singh asked whether NITI Aayog’s Sustainable Development Goals report of 2020-21 had said Bihar is the most backward State in the country. “If so, the reasons for the backwardness of Bihar state,” read the question.

Reacting to this, Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Tejashwi Yadav took a charge at the Nitish Kumar government and asked why despite double engine government Bihar’s slipping on all the parameters.

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In Union Minister Rao Inderjit Singh’s written reply that according to NITI Aayog’s report, Bihar’s composite score (52 out of 100) was the lowest among all states. The index, he added, used 115 indicators.

Inderjit Singh attributed Bihar’s poor score to factors like poverty, the worst literacy rate in those who are 15 and above and lowest mobile use and internet use.

“A high proportion (33.74 per cent) of the population lives below the poverty line, and as high as 52.5 per cent suffers from multidimensional poverty. Only 12.3 per cent of households have any usual member covered by a health insurance. As high as 42 per cent of children under five years of age are stunted, which is the highest in the country. It has the lowest literacy (64.7 per cent) in the age group of 15 years and above,” Rao Inderjit Singh said.

Apart from Bihar, bottom two states are Assam and Jharkhand.