BIMARU States Acronym

 BIMARU is an acronym for the states BI: Bihar; MA: MP, R: Rajasthan, and U: UP. The acronym was formed by Ashish Bose, an economist from the 1980s. BIMARU (Bimar) in Hindi means sick. The economist framed the acronym to stress the fact that the poor economic conditions of these four states are affecting the overall GDP growth of India. During the Investors Summit conducted in UP, PM Modi recalled the term.

Who coined “BIMARU”?

Ashish Bose. He was an economist and a demographer. Demographers are persons who study the changes happening in the economy due to population increase or decrease. In these four states, the population increased tremendously. According to Bose, these four states are economically backward in terms of health care, education, and other developmental activities mainly due to population explosion.

What is the issue?

The Total Fertility Rate in these states is 2.1. The TFR is the number of children a woman produces in her lifetime. Yet, family planning was not as efficient as in the southern states.

Role of BIMARU states in a population explosion

India is to beat China in population very soon and will become the most populous country in the world. These four states have a major role in making India the most populous. They account for 41% of the total Indian population! By 2026, they will account for 43.5%.

Bimaru' shines in urban reforms

Dipak Dash

New Delhi:





Municipalities In Bihar, MP, Raj, UP Fare Better

Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh ­­ traditionally tagged as `Bimaru' states ­­ have made major progress in urban municipal reforms in recent years, while Delhi has not submitted any claim of reforms.States such as Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, which have always performed better in such reforms, lead from the front again in the assessment by the urban development ministry .The assessment is based on documentary evidence after 23 states and Union territories submitted their claims for 436 of the 500 cities covered under urban renewal mission, AMRUT. The mandatory reforms under this scheme include e-governance, double entry accounting, water and energy audit and 90% collection of municipal taxes and user charges.
“The states that have made good progress in the past one year will be rewarded with financial incentives on Friday during the India Sanitation event,“ an urban development ministry official said. Good per formers will be rewarded a total of Rs 400 crore at the event, sources said.
Officials said the 436 cities and towns, including those with over one lakh population, have taken significant initiatives to enable e-governance, credit rating necessary for issue of municipal bonds, professionalisation of municipal cadre, augmenting revenue collection and efficient use of water and electricity .
On the whole, 329 of the 436 cities have shifted to double entry accounting ­­ which give a clearer picture of assets and liabilities ­­ and 345 have introduced energy and water audit. An official said 131 of the cities have achieved over 90% collection of user charge and 141 cities have recorded similar collection of municipal taxes. Increasing revenue base remains a tough task for municipal bodies.
Cities that collect 90% of municipal taxes and user charges include Lucknow, Allahabad, Mathura, Chandigarh, Raipur, Dewas, Kolhapur, Surat, Vadodara, Thiruvananthapuram, Mysuru, Tirupati, Vijayawada, Cuttack and Aizawl.
According to the assessment, 381 cities and towns have taken steps to bring young professionals in municipal bodies and 78% have initiated measures towards single window clearances.
Under JNNURM implemented during the UPA (2004-14), urban reforms were promoted in 65 cities.

Source: Times of India, 29-09-2016

Bimaru states show the way in women empowerment

New Delhi: TIMES NEWS NETWORK





Pip Developed States In Electing Female Panchayat Members

They may be some of the most backward states in the country, but when it comes to women empowerment these states have topped the charts and are well ahead of their more prosperous counterparts like Gujarat, Punjab, Goa, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.One of the parameters to judge women empower judge women empowerment is by knowing how many are functioning as elected representatives.
The government data on elected women representatives in Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) shows Jharkhand at the top with elected women representatives constituting more than 59%, followed by Rajasthan (58%), Uttarakhand (57%), Chhattisgarh (55%) and Bihar (52%).
In comparison, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, which incidentally have women chief ministers, have one of the lowest elected women representatives at 33% and 34% respectively. The situation is no different in other prosperous states like Punjab having 30% elected women representatives in PRIs, Goa-33% and Haryana-37%.
However, empowerment has failed to bring down infant mortality rates and maternal mortality rates (MMR) which remain high in these states. Infant deaths per 1,000 live births is 39 in Jharkhand, in Rajasthan it is 52, Uttarakhand-36, Chhattisgarh-48 and Bihar-44 against the national average of 44.
Even on the maternal mortality front, these states continue to lag. In Jharkhand the MMR is 261 per 1,00,000 population against the national average of 212. The MMR for Rajasthan is 318, Uttarakhand-359, Chhattisgarh-269 and Bihar-261.
Despite the fact that 16 states have already reserved 50% of seats in PRIs, the total women representations in these panchayat bodies still remain at a low of 46% because of laggard states.There are 13.42 lakh total elected women representatives in PRIs.
The states that have reserved 50% quota for women in their PRIs are: Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Kerala, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tripura, Uttarakhand and West Bengal.
Though West Bengal, Sikkim, Tripura, Odisha and Maharashtra have all reserved 50% quota for women, their total elected women representatives in PRIs are below this figure.Daman & Diu is at the bottom of the list with only 29% elected women representatives.

Source: Times of India, 18-12-2015

The Bihari versus the bahari

The significant migrant population from Bihar could affect the poll outcome if many choose to return to vote.

Notwithstanding the political rhetoric of bihari versus bahari (outsider), many commentators have suggested that Bihar’s migrant population, living and working in other parts of the country, may play a crucial role in determining the final outcome of the ongoing State Assembly elections. The State has the highest net migration rate (out-migration minus in-migration) in the country and in the last two decades the out-migration has increased manifold. The most recent data on migration patterns in India from the 64th round of National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) conducted in 2007-08 puts the net migration rate per 1000 persons in Bihar at the highest in the country (- 56) followed by Kerala (-44) and Uttar Pradesh (- 31).

The pre-poll survey conducted by Lokniti-Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) in Bihar in the last week of September reflects this with approximately half the sample reporting that they had at least one member of the household living outside the State. Also, as the NSSO data suggests, the size of this emigrant population in absolute numbers is huge. Thus, its effect on the final election outcome — which most pollsters and political analysts have been describing as “too close to call” — could be very large. In the 2010 Assembly elections, the average winning margin was 15,000 votes, and approximately 50 seats were decided by a difference of less than 5,000 votes. And if one does the math using the migration data from the NSSO and the electorate size of this election, then the average winning margin of the 2010 elections and average migrant population per assembly constituency turns out to be roughly the same.

How much impact would the migrant population have on the final tally? In our opinion, the overall effect of the migrant population in the final instance would be determined by four inter-related factors. First, how many of these migrants will return to vote. Second, do these returnees overwhelmingly belong to certain communities and a certain economic class? Third, do they vote along with other members of their household or are their voting decisions independent? And finally, do migrants influence the voting decisions of their family members even when they are not visiting their native places during elections?

However, an important caveat is in order before we delve into exploring the possible effect of the migrant voters. As there are no reliable estimates that suggest otherwise, we have assumed that a large proportion of the migrant population is registered as voters in Bihar.

Women’s turnout puzzle?

The assembly constituencies where the polling took place on October 12 and 16 saw an increase of approximately five percentage points in voter turnout when compared to the 2010 elections. More significantly, the turnout among women was once again much higher. What explains this higher rate of turnout among women ? Some have suggested that women are increasingly participating in the political arena thanks to relatively greater economic independence and political empowerment. Other analysts, however, argue that it is entirely plausible that the turnout differences are largely a result of differential rates of migration as approximately four of every five migrants from Bihar is a male.

While it is difficult to resolve this debate in the absence of more fine-grained data, it appears that the turnout difference between men and women is due to an increase in turnout by women and that is independent of migration, at least partly. There could be other reasons as well such as the decline in incidents of violence at polling booths, or the proximity of polling stations.

Migrants as decision makers

Many studies have pointed out that the political socialisation of migrants is different from other members of their family, and in many cases, as the sole earning members, their guidance is sought even in matters related to voting. Migrants look beyond local factors while making political decisions. For example, the pre-poll data suggests that households with at least one member living outside the State are more likely to consider the performance of the Central government than State government even during State elections. They are also more likely to own a mobile handset, a television, and have higher media exposure. Thus, these migrants can influence the voting decisions of their family members even without being physically present.

The pre-poll survey indicates that the migrant factor makes a difference to a respondent’s voting choices. In the survey, the NDA had seven percentage point lead over the Mahagathbandhan (Grand Alliance) among non out-migrant households, which gets reduced to just one percentage point among the out-migrant households. The data presented in the graphic shows that this pattern is visible across all economic classes. While the NDA had a lead of five percentage points over the Grand Alliance among poor households with no member living outside Bihar, the vote share of the two alliances is almost same among poor households with at least one out-migrant member. Similarly, the NDA trails theMahagathbandhan by nine percentage points among the lower middle class out-migrant households and by five percentage points among households in similar economic condition but no family members living outside the State. Even among the upper middle class households, where the NDA usually does well, the migrant factor makes a difference, with the NDA leading the Grand Alliance by 18 percentage points among non out-migrant households while the gap declines to 11 percentage points among out-migrant households.

Thus, the turnout of the migrant population and their family members could change the electoral equations in many parts of Bihar. Many analysts with special interest in Bihar politics have pointed out that the polling dates this time (especially phase 3 onwards) overlap with the holiday season and a significant number of migrants return to home during October-November every year. While the number of returnees may not be enough to close the gender gap in voter turnout, it can definitely influence the election results.

Our knowledge about how migrant populations participate in the political arena is very limited. The sooner we make systematic efforts to collect data on this, the better we will understand the changing nature of electoral democracy in increasingly urbanising India.

(Rahul Verma is with Lokniti-CSDS and the Travers Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley. Shreyas Sardesai is with Lokniti-CSDS, Delhi.)

Keywords: Bihar Assembly elections, migration population, pre-poll survey

Source: The Hindu, 30-10-2015

BIMARU States: the shoe fits even now

In a speech in Gaya on Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that while Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh were no longer “BIMARU” states, Bihar continued to suffer this fate. So which are India’s real BIMARU states?

The term BIMARU – an abbreviation for Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh – was coined in 1980 by the demographer Ashish Bose in a paper he wrote in the early 1980s. Mr. Bose examined a range of demographic indicators to conclude that these states, home to 40 per cent of the country’s population, lagged significantly behind the southern states, and were contributing the most to India’s population explosion. He also looked at five additional indicators including per capita income.

In May this year, economist Vinita Sharma recalculated Mr. Bose’s indicators, updated for 2011, after adding in the newly carved out states of Jharkhand, Chattisgarh and Uttarakhand, in a paper published in the Economic and Political Weekly. She found that while the states had made individual progress, on the whole, BIMARU states had not converged with the national average; in fact on half of the 13 indicators, they had diverged. While none of the states had been able to move out of the grouping, among them, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh showed a greater degree of improvement than Bihar, Ms. Sharma found.

On several other indicators of backwardness, The Hindu found, these states continue to rank well below the national average. On the key demographic indicator – the Total Fertility Rate – there are now two distinct Indias, one on the road to achieving replacement levels, and one still a long distance off. In 2013, for instance, the states with a TFR higher than the national average were (in descending order): Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.

Similarly on per capita income, while the poorer states led by Bihar have grown faster year on year than richer states, the gulf between them remains wider than ever. In 1980–81, the average per capita income of the four states was 74% of the all-India figure, but in 2010–11 it declined to 59% of it, Ms. Sharma found. As of 2014-15, The Hindu found, the richest among the BIMARU states was Rajasthan, with a per capita income of Rs 65,974, but this was still less than half that of richer states like Haryana.

In 2013, a committee constituted under the chairmanship of Raghuram Rajan, then Chief Economic Adviser in the Ministry of Finance, developed an index of backwardness to compare states with ten sub-components including per capita expenditure, the poverty rate and urbanisation rate. On that ranking, Odisha ranked the lowest followed by Bihar and Madhya Pradesh at joint second from last. Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh were also tied at the same rank.

Economist Bibek Debroy says that questions over convergence and divergence have been “done to death”, adding that these are his personal views and not that of the Niti Aayog, of which he is a member. “Of course there is a difference between base levels and increments, but as increments go, there is no question that some historically backward states – in particular Rajasthan, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh – are growing fast,” he said. Additionally, from a public policy perpective, large variations within states meant that looking at the 70 or so most backward districts of the country was a better idea, Mr. Debroy said.

Data compiled by The Hindu

Keywords: BIMARU states, Hindi belt, backward states, Total Fertility Rate, population explosion