The roads are wide, the grass green, and the flow of traffic, smooth. This is Noida, just 7.5km and a few minutes away from New Delhi through the DND Flyover. Further down the new expressway, 25km from Noida, is Greater Noida, still not as fashionable as its older sibling, with which it shares part of its name. Both are real-estate hot spots; only this February, the Noida Development Authority raked in more than Rs2,500 crore from the sale of 300 acres of land, where residential property could be built.
Noida’s malls and multiplexes can put Delhi’s to shame, and the satellite township boasts an all-night nightclub, Elevate, where Delhi’s smart set parties on weekends. Delhi’s own pubs, bars and nightclubs close early because of the city’s laws.
Noida is part of the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP), where elections to the assembly are on, although the district doesn’t show much sign of that. India’s election commission has decided that the elections will happen in seven stages; four of these are over; the last stage is scheduled for 8 May; and the results are scheduled to be announced on 11 May. Exit polls, conducted in areas where the voting is over, suggest that the incumbent Samajwadi Party government will not return to power.
Given the visible signs of progress in Noida and Greater Noida, it is difficult to understand why. But the two are just a small part of a state that hasn’t, in recent times, fared well on several indicators, both economic and social.
According to the 2001 Census, UP has 898 women for every 1,000 men; Bihar’s sex ratio is better at 921 women for every 1,000 men, even though both states are off the national average of 933.
The number of infant deaths per 1,000 live births in the past five years, according to the National Family Health Survey (2005-06), is lower for Bihar, at 62; UP’s is 73.
And according to the National Crime Records Bureau, the ratio of murders to total crime in UP was 4.71% in 2004, higher than 3.65% in Bihar, though, once again, both states were well off the national figure of 1.83%.
“Earlier, we used to derive some solace that UP was better off than Bihar at least” says Prakash Singh, a former director general of police in the state. “Now, we can’t take that dubious credit either.”
Even as UP’s performance on these parameters has declined, Bihar’s new Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who came to power in 2005, has made all the right moves, including a visit to India’s best-known management school, the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, where he delivered a lecture.
There isn’t much data available on Bihar’s performance since Nitish Kumar took over in the state, but Satish Chandra Jha, a former chief economist of the Asian Development Bank and chairman of the Prime Minister’s task force on Bihar, maintains that there has been considerable improvement in fields like education, health care, power and roads.