Accusing the Opposition parties of not coming to terms with Bihar’s speedy growth rate, Chief Minister on Friday said that the State’s 11.35 per cent growth rate as given in the Economic Survey was not an accident.
Addressing the House during the Government’s reply on the State Budget, Mr. Kumar said that the Economic Survey tabled in the State legislature on Thursday conclusively proved that the State rate of growth was not some conjured piece of fiction.
According to the Survey, the State’s annual growth rate during the Nitish Kumar regime from 2004-05 to 2008-09 was 11.35; a massive jump from the deplorable 3.5 per cent growth rate between 1999-2004 when the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) Government led by Rabri Devi was in power.
“First, our critics cynically viewed the 11.03 rate of growth by stating that the State had deliberately presented falsified data before the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO).Let me remind them that the CSO takes as well as gives data to the States,” said Mr. Kumar, adding that in that case the Opposition should be doubting the functioning of the CSO as a whole.
The survey pegs the State’s Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) for 2008-09 at Rs. 1,31, 873.2 cr. with three major sectors - Construction (at 35.8per cent), Communications (at 17.68per cent) and trade, hotel and restaurants (at 17.71per cent) registering high growth rates.
“The Opposition just does not have the courage to stomach the truth. It was we who had implemented the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act in the state after our government came to power in 2005,” said Mr. Kumar.
Sardonically dubbing 2003-04 as the “golden period” of productivity for the RJD regime, Mr. Kumar said that the state’s own cash resources witnessed a massive increase to Rs. 5,636 cr. in 2008-09 from a paltry Rs. 78 cr. in 2003-04.
“Our revenue surplus had increased fourfold to nearly Rs. 4469 cr. in 2008-09 from Rs. 1076 cr. As regards physical achievement, we have constructed 2417 km of roads as compared to the 415 km by RJD government,” he said.
The Opposition parties, however, were not impressed by Mr. Kumar’s litany of statistics and stormed out midway, led by the RJD State President Mr. Abdul Bari Siddiqui.
