Cutting soil (Main traditional profession of Mushar community)

Mushar carrying soil by TALA (A traditional equipment to carry soil)

Bihar is the poorest state in India with the lowest per capita income amongst the major states 4. In 2004/05, the real per capita GSDP was Rs. 4435 while the nominal per capita GSDP was Rs. 7080 which were less than half that of the neighbouring state of Jharkhand. More than 40% of the population lives below the poverty line. It is also the third most populated state with a total population of 83 million. The state’s performance lags seriously behind others. Although moderate progress was made during the 1990s (1993-94 to 1999-00) in reducing poverty by nearly 7 percentage points, the rate of poverty reduction was well below the national average. Current projections are that Bihar is likely to fall well behind on most of the MDG targets for 2015. Bihar’s rank for HDI among the Indian states has remained unchanged at 15 since 1981 while its score has increased marginally from 0.237 in 1981 to 0.308 in 1991 to 0.267 in 2001. It fares very badly on a number of indicators. In the 1990s Bihar had the lowest Gender Equality Index in India, and had witnessed a decline in absolute terms over the earlier period.  Bihar Towards a Development Strategy. A World Bank Report; G.S. KANG, Chief Secretary, Government of Bihar Challenges of Economic Policy Reform in Asia May 31 - June 3, 2006, the 2006 Pan Asia Conference. Stanford Center for International Development

 According to the 2001 census Bihar has the lowest literacy rate in the country - 48% against a national average of 65%. It is the only state where primary enrolment fell between 1993 and 1999, and 80% of the bottom quintile heads of household have no education.  Bihar is a predominantly agrarian economy with a small manufacturing base. The share of services has increased from 41% to nearly 50% of GSDP, which is roughly the same as the Indian overall average. While the share of agriculture has declined, it is still very large. According to the NSS, nearly 40% of the workforce is engaged in agricultural labour (1999-2000) down from 42% in the previous round. Cultivation and farm labour together account for 80% of employment.  Crop productivity has been below the Indian average for most cereals. The causes for the large yield gap include: low investment rates, lack of water management with annual flooding of the Gangetic plain, weak transport and marketing infrastructure as well as severe fragmentation of land holdings. 31 districts are flood prone and 11 are drought prone. Only five districts are not prone to floods and drought.  Poverty is predominantly rural in Bihar and is associated with limited access to land and livestock, poor education and health care, as well as low-paid occupations and social status. NSS data show that 75% of the poor were landless or near landless in 1999-2000. Although land reforms were introduced in 1950 they have been slow and ineffective. The rural poor tend to depend on agricultural wages or casual non-farm jobs for a living. Over time the proportion of non-farm labourers in the poorest quintile has increased and the proportion of farm workers decreased.  North Bihar and the Chhotanagpur Plateau are significantly poorer than southern parts of the region. Regional variations are in part explained by structural factors such as ecology, population density, infrastructure and transport, but belonging to a scheduled caste or being female or landless significantly increases the risk of being poor. SCs and STs are likely to be three times poorer than other castes. They are also three times more likely to be landless, and their status on these two counts has remained virtually unchanged since 1993-94. They are deprived on various counts: only 2.9 per cent of Scheduled Tribe and 4.9 per cent of Scheduled Caste households had access to electricity, compared to over 14 per cent in the case of other households. Muslims do not do very well either: a study by Patna-based Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI) on the socioeconomic status of Muslims found that 49.5 percent of rural Muslims and 44.8 percent of urban Muslims live below the poverty line. Take the case of the Musahar who are classified as a scheduled caste. They are spread across the districts of Madhubani, Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga, Champaran, Hazaribagh, Santhal Pargana, Bhagalpur, Munger, Purnia, and Gaya. There were 13,91,000 Musahars in Bihar in 1981 (not clear if enumerated since then). They are thought to be an offshoot of the bhuiya tribe of Chhota Nagpur and are in fact referred to by that name in Bihar as well. The name translates into rat-taker or rat-eater. Musahars are mainly landless agricultural labourers. The Musahars have largely remained on the periphery of society.  Mukul 1999.Everyday Life of Musahars in North Bihar EPW Special Articles December 4, 1999  Bihar has a poor record on poverty alleviation programmes and government services, for example, serious mis-targeting in the PDS and chronic teacher absenteeism. Electricity supplies have been erratic: in 2003-04, per capita consumption of electricity was 44.85Kwh as compared to 606Kwh at the national level. Transmission & Distribution losses for the state are 37.69%. Less than 8% of the 81,655 km of roads in Bihar are national or state highways. Approximately 45% of the road network is unpaved. Although 50% of the assessed ultimate irrigation potential from major and medium irrigation schemes has been created, the utilisation of these is only 60%. It must be noted that the new government has introduced a number of policies to address these problems and it is likely that these measures will improve the rural economy and provide people with more opportunities close to home.