Poverty in Bihar: CHILDREN AFTER KOSHI FLOOD If poverty is defined as deprivation of basic human needs – food, safe drinking water, sanitation, health services, shelter and education – then more than two-third of Bihar’s population would be subsumed under this category. Official statistics tell part of the story. Bihar has the lowest literacy rate in the country. Next to Orissa, Bihar has the highest percentage of people living below the poverty line. It has the lowest per capita income among the major states of India. “Bihar’s per capita income, which was about 60 per cent of the average for India during the early 1960s, declined to about 40 per cent in 1993-94 and further to 34 per cent in 1997-98” (Sharma 2005: 960). The growth rate of state domestic product for Bihar was just 2.69 per cent per annum from 1991-92 to 1997-98 compared with 6 per cent for all the major states of the country (Ahluwalia 2000, cited in Sharma 2005: 960). While the population growth rate in India declin
