Development with Justice: The Bihar Experience

Since the nation’s independence, the union and state governments of India have employed a variety of development strategies, some of which have evolved over time. The model of development implemented in Bihar in recent decades is different from its prior development strategies. Along with a number of social reform initiatives, the Bihar government implemented the “development-with-justice” model to enhance the lives and living circumstances of the most marginalized groups of the population and ensure the attainment of social justice.
In light of the aforementioned context, this book offers an understanding of the various aspects of the Bihar government’s “development-with-justice” model, and the effects of its implementation on lives and quality of living conditions of the state’s underprivileged population. The book covers a wide spectrum of areas such as history of social reform measures, social justice in education, health, labour market, etc., caste- and gender-based discrimination, women’s empowerment, migrant workers, poverty, inequality, agrarian concerns, planning for development, and so on. Besides recommending policies to improve the state’s development outcomes, this book will aid researchers in identifying topics that may require additional research.

Clearly researched, concise, and up-to-date, this book will be useful to the students and researchers from the fields of development economics, development studies, gender studies, sociology, political science, economic history, as well as the policy-planners in the government.

Sankar Kumar Bhaumik is the Director of the Patliputra School of Economics. Prior to joining the Patliputra School of Economics in August 2020, he served the Departments of Economics of Calcutta University (22 years), Vidyasagar University (9 years), and the Central University of South Bihar (3 and a half years). He became Professor and Head of the Economics Department at Calcutta University and Professor and Head of the Economics Department and Dean of Social Sciences at the Central University of South Bihar. He also served as Director of the Institute of Development Studies in Jaipur. His fields of specialisation are econometrics, the economics of agriculture, Indian economic development, and research methodology. His previous book publications include Principles of Econometrics: A Modern Approach Using EViews, Reforming Indian Agriculture: Towards Employment Generation and Poverty Reduction, Enhancing Agricultural Productivity and Farmer Incomes in Bihar, and Tenancy Relations and Agrarian Development: A Study of West Bengal. He has to his credit 35 research papers published in refereed journals or edited books. He has completed 5 research projects, and supervised 14 PhD theses (all awarded) and 11 MPhil dissertations (all awarded).