 "Not so BIMARU now: Amit Shah says MP has shed the tag. What does it mean?")
Ahead of the crucial Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday released the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government's "report card" from 2003-2023 for the state of Madhya Pradesh, which was once a stronghold of the Congress.
Highlighting the development work done by the saffron party, Shah said that the BJP government in these years successfully removed the BIMARU (laggard) tag from the state.
"Madhya Pradesh came into existence in 1956 and since then, except for five-six years, Congress ruled the state till 2003, but the state remained BIMARU during their regime," news agency PTI quoted Shah as saying.
"However, the BJP government has successfully brought the state out of the BIMARU tag and put it on the path of development by implementing various welfare schemes," he added.
But what exactly does BIMARU stand for, and what role does it play in population growth? Let's find out.
What do BIMARU states mean?
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The acronym BIMARU is an amalgamation of the names of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh and is a play on the Hindi word "bimar", meaning sick or unwell.
Who coined the term?
The term was coined by the late demographer (a demographer is someone who studies a population and changes within it) Ashish Bose in a paper submitted to then-Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. At this point in time, the states of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand were not separate states and were part of the grouping, reported The Indian Express.
Why was the BIMARU tag coined?
In a 2007 article for Economic and Political Weekly, Bose explained, "I had coined the term…to pinpoint India's demographic malady as far back as 1985 when I was asked to brief the then prime minister on India's family planning programme."
Is the term BIMARU still relevant?
Bose stated that it is unfortunate that the BIMARU states continue to be BIMARU even today, and what is worse, these states will continue to be BIMARU even after 25 years, according to the registrar general's projections.
Bose mainly argued that, in terms of family planning and population control, these four states, with their high population growth rates, were likely to reverse achievements made elsewhere in the country.
The national goal of reaching a "stabilising population", meaning where the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of 2.1 was achieved, was more difficult to achieve, therefore. TFR estimates the number of children each woman bears in her lifetime, on average.
Is Madhya Pradesh a BIMARU state?
Madhya Pradesh, in the last 15 years, has traversed the path from a BIMARU state to emerge as a developing state, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said, adding that the state will soon be on the list of the developed states of India.
He further said that Madhya Pradesh is the fastest-growing state in the country, with a growth rate of 19.70 per cent.
"The state contribution in the Indian economy has increased from 2.6 per cent to 3.6 per cent. We are working under the guidance of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi. We used to be called a BIMARU state, if we see the journey of 15 years, Madhya Pradesh has become a developing state out of BIMARU state," he said.
According to an analysis by ThePrint, Madhya Pradesh's economy has grown by about 6.65 per cent per annum on average between 2011-12 and 2021-22, the fourth highest rate of growth among states with a Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) of Rs 1 trillion and above during this period.
This rapid growth, however, has not transformed it into an industrial state. Instead, Madhya Pradesh has become more agrarian, faring poorly on several socio-economic and demographic indicators in comparison to five neighbouring states and the national average.
When compared to its five neighbours, the state's GSDP growth is second only to Gujarat's, with Rajasthan (5.45 per cent), Chhattisgarh (5.41 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (5.22 per cent) and Maharashtra (4.71 per cent) trailing behind, the analysis shows.
However, this growth is not reflected in Madhya Pradesh's positioning in terms of per capita income. Of the 21 states with GSDPs of Rs 1 trillion and above, it was ranked 18th in 2011-12. Since then, with a per capita income of Rs 1.2 lakh, the state was able to climb only two steps to reach the 16th rank by 2021-22.
The national average per capita income, according to the revised estimate by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), is Rs 1.48 lakh.
Among its neighbours, Madhya Pradesh still fares better than Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh on this count, while Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan continue to be ranked higher.
What role do BIMARU states play in population growth?
"Erstwhile BIMARU states, which accounted for 41 per cent of India's total population in 2001, will account for 43.5 per cent in 2026. This has tremendous political implications. It also shows that the share of BIMARU states in the absolute increase in India's population during 2001-26 will be of the order of 50.4 per cent while the share of the south will be only 12.6 per cent," The Indian Express quoted Bose as saying.
According to a 2020 report titled 'Report of the Technical Group on Population Projection' by the Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare's National Commission on Population, BIMARU states (excluding the three carved out states) will contribute to 49.1 per cent of the population increase in India between 2011 and 2036.
Population in Indian states also influences the delimitation process or the number of seats allotted to them in Parliament. Currently, the seats are proportional to the Indian population as of the 1971 census. It was put on hold until 2001 (and has now further been extended to 2026) to give states time to meet family planning goals.
Time and again, Southern states have highlighted that the division of seats and devolution of funds to states on the basis of population is unfair to them.
DMK member Kanimozhi NVN Somu said in Rajya Sabha in December 2022, "Tamil Nadu is the only state which sincerely and successfully implemented the family planning programme proposed by the Union government."
"In North Indian states, family planning was not implemented with sincerity and due respect…It is absolutely ridiculous and very unfair that states which successfully implemented family planning are penalised, and states that are reckless are being incentivised," she said.
Bose further mentioned how these states fare poorly on metrics such as women's literacy, lower institutional childbirths (in a medical institution), etc.
However, there was a dip of 4 per cent in the population growth rate of these states, from 24.99 per cent in 1991-2001 to 20.92 per cent in 2001-11, contributing to the country's decadal growth rate.
How has BIMARU been used over time?
The BIMARU tag has been used to both attack the parties in power in these states and to highlight successes in making progress.
In 2012, then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said, "States that used to grow slowly in earlier periods have done much better. The average growth rate of the five poorest states exceeds the national average for the first time in any Plan period. I think we may be reaching the stage when the term "BIMARU States" can be relegated to history."
There have also been studies to see if the categorisation continues to apply. A 2015 IIM Ahmedabad study on medical facilities in these states found that there were gaps.
"All these states including Bihar (17.83), MP (7.53) and UP (3.91), except Rajasthan (61.19) are below the national average (20.74) in terms of total and rural government hospitals per million people," the report stated.
NITI Aayog's 2019-20 Health Index Round IV also placed Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh (in descending order) among the bottom four of 19 large states.