Shaibal Gupta, Country Co-director, IGC India-Bihar,

Bihar Governor Ram Nath Kovind said that despite having a legacy of poor growth rate Bihar today is one of the fastest growing States in the country. “This speaks volumes about the efficacy of policies of the State Government”, he said, while inaugurating the two-day  annual conference of International Growth Centre (IGC)-Bihar here. “For a country like India and a State like Bihar where there is inequality of wealth possession and also of livelihood opportunities, such conferences are all the more important to give proper direction to Government policies,” said Kovind.

Emphasising that growth needed to be inclusive, the Governor said there could be “no social justice minus distribution justice”. There was no dearth of resources, the need was to allocate them equally, he added.

Speaking on the occasion, Education Minister Ashok Choudhary said Bihar is on the path of development and the conference was a celebration of this fact. He said the focus of his Ministry was the development of human capital. As a part of this strategy, girls’ education is a priority area as their education led to low fertility rate. He said the fact that the State had recorded one of the highest enrolment rates by girls at the primary level among States is an encouraging indicator.

He added that an “operation clean-up” was on in the Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) and that for the purpose expert opinion was being received from the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). A child tracking system from Class I to X is also being worked out.

Earlier, Shaibal Gupta, Country Co-director, IGC India-Bihar, said because of its tremendous growth potential, Bihar had got the only province-specific IGC centre. All other IGC centres are country-specific.

The first project work during the first session on ‘Effective Public Services Delivery’ is presented by Shabana Mitra of IIM-Bangalore on the title ‘Wheels of Power: Long-term effect of targeting girls with in-kind transfers’. Speaking on the study on bicycle scheme launched by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in 2006, she said that the girls who got cycles had more chances of completing Class X than those who did not have cycles. She said the girls who received cycles had not only more chances to study till Class X but also have more likely to delay marriage, at least a year later than those who did not get cycles.

This also had a positive effect on fertility rate. “Bicycles have been a powerful tool of empowerment because better education meant that girls would not go for farm jobs and would look for better opportunities commensurate with their education,” said Shabana.