Bangladesh-A lesson for low income states: WB Economist

Patna, June 22 (UNI) World Bank's senior economist Dr Binayak Sen has said some aspects of the development experience of Bangladesh in recent years could be a pathway for Bihar and other low income states to reach the age of prosperity.

Dr Sen said Bangladesh along with West Bengal, Bihar and Orissa was part of ''Permanent Settlement'' under the British rule and some aspects of the development experience of Bangladesh in its post independent period could provide important lesson for Bihar and other low income states, which often suffers from ''negative development image''.

Going back to its history, Dr Sen said when Bangladesh got independence in 1971, its initial prediction of development prospects was extremely bleak. Bangladesh was dubbed as the ''test case of development'' as mentioned by JR Parkinson and Fallen in their report to the World Bank. In fact its state solvency was questioned, he said while delivering a talk on ''Rethinking Bangladesh: Lessons for Bihar and other low income contexts'', organised under the aegis of Asian Development Reasearh Institute(ADRI) here yesterday.

Taking into account its poor natural resource base, population explosion, vulnerability to natural disasters and inexperienced polity to run economic affairs of the country, such predictions were considered realistic.

Dr Sen said all these projections were proved wrong by subsequent developments that took place in that country since its independence. He also cited example of growth in its annual per capita Gross Domestic Product(GDP) which was 1.6 per cent in 1981-90 3 per cent in1991-00 and currently it is pegged at 4.5 per cent which he said was commendable.

What was appreciable was that more than one per cent drop in poverty every year, gender parity was achieved in the primary and secondary education, the country witnessed one of the fastest drop rate in Infant Mortality Rate(IMR) in the developing world including India and other threshold economies, substantial progress had been achieved in maternal healthcare, child nutrition and rural sanitation.

Dr Sen also emphasised that this progress was achieved through effective implementation of ''service delivery mechanism'' by empowering ''Gram Swaraj'' or local government. Right from the beginning the country realised the need for focussing on rural development through green revolution, rural infrastructure development and promotion of grameen movements like ''Grameen bank and Grameen phone'' schemes under the auspices of legendary Younus Khan by crediting micro-credit and micro-finance.

He also added improved financial conditions, strategic placement of administrative capacity in the key areas of government machinery to check corruption and broad based ownership of social and economic reforms by major political stakeholders - all these features played an important role in its sustainable development.

He was of the opinion ''all these issues have important implications for Bihar and other low income states, as these things are essential to address the emerging development challenges''.

Earlier, introducing the theme ADRI, Director Professor Prabhat Ghosh said the developmental trends in Bangladesh economy could be a benchmark for Bihar and other low income states.

UNI