Patna,(BiharTimes): The Nitish Kumar government is planning to challenge the latest Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) as they have been taken from some agency, which it has hired for this purpose and not  based on the figures sent by the state government.

According to the CSO report the GSDP of the state has come down to 7.14 per cent for the financial year 2015-16 from 13.02 per cent during 2014-15. The growth rates are on constant prices, the base year for which is 2011-12.

As the state has been registering almost non-stop double-digit growth since 2004-05 the sudden fall in the figure was bound to raise eyebrows.

Sources in the state government are upset over the CSO’s approach.

“CSO figures are invariably based on economic and sectoral data sent by the states. Bihar sent all the required data, but the central government did not consider our figures on construction and industry. Instead, it took data from some agency which it has hired for this purpose. We are going to take this up with the central government, ask it to consider our data and correct the figures,” a senior official of the state planning and development department was quoted in The Telegraph.

The official further said that owing to this, a difference of Rs 67,000 crore in absolute terms had crept into the GSDP figures.

The daily report also said that officials in the planning and development department and the statistics directorate which comes under it remained huddled through the day on Tuesday to arrive at a break-up of the figures and dip in primary (agriculture and allied), secondary (industry) and tertiary (services like banking, finance retail, tourism) growth.

Though the then JD(U)-BJP government had been making tall claims over the growth rate many experts used to say that it was primarily construction driven.

As the National Green Tribunal had banned sand mining in the state construction activities almost halted. Thus the decline in growth rate was natural.

The growth story had a different side too, which only BiharTimes had repeatedly been highlighting. The 11-plus per cent of growth rate started from the financial year 2004-05 (that is April 1, 2004) when Rabri Devi and not Nitish Kumar was the CM. He became chief minister more than 20 months later on  November 24, 2005.

Why was such an important fact repeatedly been ignored by the media?

No doubt the Nitish Kumar government took some positive steps, but so far high growth rate is concerned it has more to do with the massive central government construction projects undertaken in the last years of the Vajpayee government and then by the UPA government.

True state highways and district roads were built in a big way, but the big boost came from the East-West Corridor, Golden Quadrilateral and huge railway projects brought by successive railway ministers from Bihar.

The impact was not visible earlier because Bihar got divided in November 2000 and the most developed and minerally-rich half went on to become Jharkhand. It took more than three years for the truncated Bihar to recover.

So far the present Centre-state tussle over the issue is concerned an observer on the condition of anonymity commented: “It appears somewhat mysterious as to how can it be that the growth rate was faster when the BJP was in power in Bihar and suddenly fell down when the same party came to power in the Centre.”

The fact is that the growth story is not the best measure to judge the performance of any state government. It was much higher during Mayawati era in UP and Jharkhand which had political uncertainty throughout.

As per the latest CSO figures the growth rate in Raghubar Das-led  Jharkhand government fell to 12.14 per cent in 2015-16 in comparison to 12.47 per cent in 2014-15, when Hemant Soren was the chief minister. Still this year Jharkhand tops the chart in the country.