Policy makers must unleash productive forces of economy : Prez

Speed Post News Network

Patna : President Pranab Mukherjee inaugurated a conference on “Bihar and Jharkhand: Shared History to Shared Vision’ organized by the Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI) as part of its Silver Jubilee celebrations. on March 24, 2017, at Patna, Bihar.
Speaking on the occasion, the President said that he had come to the state of Bihar on many occasions and was always inspired by this land of inspiration. The ancient history of Bihar of which Jharkhand was a part, is indeed glorious. It was the region where Buddhism first emerged and where Nalanada and Vikramshila served as great seats of learning in ancient India. Despite the region being a land of rich mineral resources and fertile soil, relative economic progress and development could not take place.

The President said that the enormous gap between the potential and reality of development in Bihar and Jharkhand, the former having plenty of fertile land and the latter endowed with abundant mineral resources, has attracted the attention of many scholars.

“At this juncture, however, we only need to remember one important lesson of history, viz, the burden of history, howsoever heavy, can indeed be unloaded with right social mobilization and political initiatives. We also need to realize that, for seriously disadvantaged regions like Bihar and Jharkhand, a strategy of development requires the policy makers to unleash the productive forces of the economy, and not just unquestionably follow a path of industrialization, as was done by countries or regions which had developed earlier. It is here that one requires directed research which can identify appropriate policies that best suit the interests of the regions,” President Mukherjee said.
The President said that he was very happy to learn that the Asian Development Research institute (ADRI) is one of those institutions which have been active in social science research during the last 25 years. He hoped that they would continue their efforts in coming years and attain new heights in their academic pursuit and simultaneously provide valuable research support to various development agencies.

President Mukherjee said Bihar has shown the way in implementation of many social development schemes. The growth performance of Bihar economy has been steady over the past one decade registering an annual growth rate at 10.5 percent. This is a remarkable achievement. While Bihar still remains a largely agricultural state, Jharkhand is slowly transforming itself into an economy with larger share of service sector. Governments in both the states have taken a large number of steps to speed up the transformation of the social and economic conditions of the states, he said.

Bihar governor Ram Nath Kovind, CM Nitish Kumar, Deputy CM Tejaswi Yadav, Education Minister Ashok Chaudhary, and former Rajya Sabha member N K Singh were prominent among those  addressing the seminar.