Bihar per capita income lower than Jharkhand, UP, Odisha & MP: CAG

Patna, Aug 11 (IANS) The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has said that the per capita income of Bihar is lower than its neighbours -- Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha and Madhya Pradesh.

The CAG report has shown an increase in economic growth for the period from 2011 to 2022 as the Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of its Gross State Domestic Product GSDP has been 10.18 per cent, which is higher than the national CAGR of the country within 10.11 per cent.

However, the per capita income of Bihar is Rs 54,383 at the end of 2021-22.

The figure is lower compared to other states like Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha and Madhya Pradesh having Rs 88,535; Rs 79,396; Rs 1,39,995 and Rs 1,37,339 respectively.

This is an eye-opener for the Nitish Kumar government as he has been in power in the state for 18 years, but the per capita income is much lower than neighbouring states.

Bihar has registered Rs 6,75,448 crore as the GSDP with a growth rate of 15.04 per cent during the year of 2021-22. It has witnessed a growth of 10 per cent per year except for the pandemic period when the growth rate was 0.80 per cent in 2020-21.

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of India was recorded at -1.36 per cent in 2020-21 compared to previous year.

During 2021-22, the fiscal liabilities increased by 13.34 per cent over previous year due to increase of internal debt by 14.60 per cent and the loan and advance from the Government of India was 47.57 per cent.

The government entities have obtained loans amounting Rs 1,482.50 crore on behalf of the state government of Bihar as on March 31, 2022. These loans are off budget borrowings by the state government.

The state government has provided guarantees for these loans since these borrowings did not form part of the borrowing of the government directly. These were not included in the public debt of the financial accounts and therefore figures are being calculated as a fiscal deficit of the state.

Thus, taking into account the off-budget borrowing of the state, the total outstanding debt at the end of March 2022 worked out to be Rs 2,58,992,71 crore against the Rs 2,57,510,21 crore. Consequently, the overall debt percentage of GSDP at the end of the year 2022 was understood to be 0.22 per cent.