State needs special status to accelerate growth: Energy min

State energy ministerBijendra Prasad Yadavon Thursday said in the legislative council that sincehas totally ignored the incremental improvement inBihar, it further increased the states claim for special status. He said Resources required for development would be easily available if special category status was accorded to the state.

The development index of different states varies at different levels. The Growth that Bihar has achieved in different sectors had not been taken into account by NITI Aayog. In 2004-05, 54.4% of the Population in Bihar was below POVERTY level and the number came down to 33.7% in 2011.

He added for Multidimensional Poverty Index, only two criteria in Education-sector”>Education sector had been taken into account. However, Bihar has made progress in different categories in this sector. In 2005, 5.6 lakh students had appeared for the Matriculation examination and the number increased to over 16 lakh in 2011. In the same time period, the number of students who appeared for Intermediate examination increased from 3.5 lakh to 13.51 lakh. Various schemes like cycle yojana and kanya protsahan yojana have led to huge jump in enrolment of girl students.