Combative Bihar government to question CSO on state's growth figures
Bihar government will also be sending its own assessment of the state's growth figure and in what sectors has it performed well to the CSO.
In yet another round of confrontation with the Centre, Bihar government has decided to send a report to the Central Statistical Office and seek answers on what basis was the growth figures determined because of which figures released by the CSO this week showed a massive slide in state's growth rate.
Bihar government will also be sending its own assessment of Bihar's growth figure and in what sectors has the state performed well to the CSO. It may be noted that the CSO earlier this week released growth figures for Bihar in which the growth rate had slid from a 13.02 per cent in 2014-15 to 7.14 per cent in 2015-16.
The dip in growth rate has caused severe embarrassment for Bihar government and raised questions over the functioning of the CM Nitish Kumar. Nitish, in the last few years, has been riding high on the double digit growth rate of Bihar and was also being credited for the state's turnaround. However, the fresh figures have put a question mark on the state's pace of development as the Bihar CM has been claiming. Also the growth figures have given the Opposition BJP a fresh ammunition to target Nitish.
BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi has slammed the Bihar government for questioning the report of the CSO and raising doubts on the figures of the premier organisation. He also alleged that the state government now was busy in preparing forged numbers to incorporate in its report which the state government is likely to send to the CSO.
"Bihar for the first time received additional Rs 12000 crore as its share in central taxes in 2015-16. The state government should tell that whether the state received more than Rs 3000-4000 crore as its share in central taxes in earlier years. Uselessly raising questions over CSO will not work," said the former Deputy CM, Sushil Kumar Modi.
Bihar in the last five years registered impressive growth rate of 15.03 per cent in 2010-11, 10.29 per cent in 2011-12, 10.69 per cent in 2012-13, 9.12 per cent in 2013-14 and 13.02 per cent in 2014-15.