Bihar Poll Bugle: Another Election Season, Another Sullen Employment State

In contrast to Delhi, Maharashtra, and Gujarat, which attract workers from other States, Bihar has only 1 per cent of its workforce made up of migrants.

Moreover, the majority of workers in Bihar are its own residents, with many of them seeking employment opportunities elsewhere.

Further, Bihar has only 2.2 per cent of India’s factories and attracts less than 1 per cent of national FDI, leaving its youth with only a few options to build on, but hope. Even if Tejashwi Yadav’s promise of 10 lakh new jobs were to be realised, the annual salary bill would rise by ₹25,000 crore — which is nearly one-tenth of the total revenue. 

Only 36 per cent of the working-age population is in the labour force, compared to 54 per cent nationally, and youth unemployment stands at 15.8 per cent, nearly twice the country's average. Migration keeps villages alive, but drains their energy.

The Exodus Curve

According to analysts, solving the migration quandary doesn’t necessarily mean that the labour exodus would come to a halt — rather, it would make staying back only an option. And this would require at least ₹50,000 crore in steady investments, over a decade, in skills, irrigation, agro-industry, and in the urban hubs beyond Patna.

Bihar has been gearing up for the elections. Somehow, the excitement feels forced. The faces are the same, the slogans recycled, the alliances rearranged, and the story underneath hasn’t really moved: a state that once helped shape growth now drifts between the promise of reform and the weariness of repetition.

Whoever wins — Nitish Kumar’s frayed coalition, Tejashwi Yadav’s restless opposition, or Prashant Kishor’s fledgling movement, will inherit not a crisis, but a long-running condition. 

The per-capita income stands at ₹59,637, which is roughly a third of India’s average. For every ₹100 an average Indian earns, a person from Bihar earns ₹33. This gap has refused to close. 

The Poll Bugle

The 2025 Assembly campaign feels less like an election and more like a rerun. The BJP–JD(U) alliance waves the “Sushasan” flag as proof of order restored. The RJD–Congress alliance promises ten lakh jobs. Each wants to own Bihar’s future, but only a few admit to owning its present.

Bihar’s economy rests on shaky ground. Services — not factories or farms — drive most of its growth. Agriculture employs about three-quarters of the workforce, but adds barely a fifth of the State’s output.

The prosperity on display is built on remittances. Roughly two million people from Bihar migrate to other States or abroad for work. They keep the fire burning — and the illusion of growth alive.

The Uneven Map

Bihar’s Human Development Index (HDI) stands at 0.609 (2022) — still near the bottom. Literacy trails the national mean by over 11 points. One government doctor would serve about 20,000 people. One in four children drops out of school early.

Patna’s income is six times that of Sheohar’s. Bihar, really, is two states stitched together — one barely keeping up, and another slipping further behind. The roots of this stagnation go back to three decades.

Bihar sounds modern; it still measures medieval.

Amid the two-phase election (results due on November 14), the real question remains: what can anyone change? Bihar’s economy runs on remittances, grants, and goodwill. The next Chief Minister will not govern a state on the rise, but one stuck between momentum and drift.

What Comes Next

For Bihar to dream big for robust economic growth, it must rewrite its own script — from consumption to creation, from subsidies to skills, and from politics to productivity.

That means rebuilding small-scale industry, investing heavily in education and health, and tightening its fiscal belt — less for spectacle, and more for substance.

The real opposition in Bihar isn’t the NDA or the Mahagathbandhan. It is arithmetic. The numbers don’t lie: a State that grows without developing, spends without earning, and votes without changing.

When Bihar goes to the polls this month, it won’t just pick a government. It will decide whether democracy here can still alter destiny.

(The writer is an economic analyst and journalist. Views are personal.)