The beginning of a year is always momentous, tantalizing and pregnant with myriad of possibilities. One cannot but hope that the coming year will be different from the years that had passed. Such an expectation is not altogether unreal, as an authentic paradigm shift is possibly taking place in the country. Unlike in the immediate post-independent period, the state in India will possibly be forced to abandon its role as a ‘provider’ henceforth. The tripartite strategy of retreat, dismantling and disinvestment has already been opted by the state for itself in the national apex. Can Bihar chart out a different course for itself in the near future? With a depleted public finance and burgeoning deficit/ debt, can the state still play the role of a ‘provider’? The magnitude of our problem is gigantic. Even after completion of nine Five Year Plans, the percentage of the poor in our state (42 percent) remains substantial. On the other hand, the share of the internal revenue (Rs.3100 crores) out of the state’s total annual budget (Rs.18000 crores) is too meager for the state to act as a ‘provider’. Even the share of the central government revenue (around Rs. 7000 crores) is dependent on the track record of its collection. With globalisation and the opening of the market, the Indian economy is witnessing the twin problem of recession and deindustrialization. If the Kelkar Report on Direct Taxes is implemented even partially, the buoyancy in revenue collection may get further diminished. Consequently, the state’s share in the central kitty too will get further depleted. In the last financial year, the depleted revenue collection of the central government to the tune of Rs.30, 000 crores led to a loss of about Rs.1000 crores for Bihar. Over and above, we are borrowing several thousand crores (about Rs. 7000 crores) annually for paying interest and meeting other deficits. Infact, nearly the entire budgetary exercise of the state is primarily meant for servicing about 5 lakh of its public servants. While the state government now is increasingly unable to pay the salary of their current employees, the expenses on pensions and other post-retirement benefits of its former employees are mounting pressure on its worsening financial position. The sharp rise in expenses on retired employees has become a major cause of financial decadence of the state. The magnitude of the problem got multiplied with the implementation of the Fifth Pay Commission. The burden has become unsustainable now. Apart from the increased salary, our state spent about 13.8 percent of its total revenue expenditure in 2001-02 to pay the pension as against 6.6 percent in 1995-96. What is worrying is that, in the absence of any fund for pension, the state has to increase its debt burden to meet the increasing expenses.

The fact of the matter for Bihar is that the liabilities are growing by almost 20 percent. The deficit of the Bihar Budget is to the tune of about 9 percent of state’s GDP. This is a dangerous situation. It is really strange that more than 90 percent of the revenue expenditure has to go for administrative expenses and interest payment. A minuscule capital expenditure of about 5-6 percent cannot expected to have any impact on the mammoth exercise of building the state. The deficit of the state needs to be brought down to the level of 2 to 3 percent. On the other hand, to make the capital expenditure substantive, it should be in the range of 50 percent of the budget. But how can that be possible when the debt burden of the state has increased from about Rs. 12,000 crores (1991-92) to about Rs. 35,000 crores (2001-02). The Debt/SGDP is roughly estimated to be about 42 percent.

In this backdrop, it is really a matter of serious reflection and introspection to decide about realistic policy and strategy. The polity will have to reinvent its role. With the stated policy of withdrawal of the state and increasing role of the market, it is no longer possible for the state to be a provider. In the competitive electoral policy, the role of the state as provider gets larger than life image. This role got ideological sustenance earlier from Marx, Keynes and Fabian Socialism. Even ‘Bombay Plan’, the charter of the Indian capitalists in pre-independence period, gave the state a pre-eminence role as a provider. But the expected role of the state as a provider will have to be banished now because of fiscal compulsions. The reinvented role of the state, in the face of that compulsion, could be that of ‘enabler’. Enabling could be at many levels, either individual or societal. Renaissance and regeneration in the west led to agricultural and industrial revolution. This could be possible because individual enabling emerged out of societal enabling. Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo were not creations out of blue. Possibly there were several hundreds nearing their talents, but they all remained outside the cognitive world of European scholarship. It is this pervasive nature of enabling phenomenon that gave strength and depth to the Eurocentric model of development. Even the social movements in south and western India had marginally replicated the western model, which triggered growth and relatively better track record of governance. Bengal renaissance, on the other hand, lacked social depth and hence probably failed to generate productive forces towards industrialization. Unlike in Italy, it was not a fusion of aesthetics and mechanics. It was, therefore, not surprising that the entire populace of Milano came to see the consequences of carpet bombing of the city in the second world war, on the ‘Last Supper’ fresco of Leonardo in the Sistine Chapel, ignoring the devastations of their own houses. But history does repeat itself, sometime as tragedy or sometime as farce. In Ahmadabad, on the fateful day of January 26, 2000, several people remained glued to their television sets to see the return of Mihir in the episode of ‘Kyon Ki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi’, even while buildings were falling like house of cards due to devastating earthquake. Bihar has now to make a choice between two models of social enabling - citizens of Milano concerned with ‘Last Supper’ or those of Ahmedabad mindful of a Saas-Bahu TV serial. Remember, both the cities were centres of industrialization and ethno-religious mobilisation. Alternatively, Bihar can also script a new model of enabling, ensuring that ‘Ramkhilawan’ does not becomes the cultural icon of its ‘cockney’ and the model of societal enabling.