Employment is the path to Bihar youth’s homecoming

At his rally in Samastipur on October 24, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) had delivered the internetto every village at the lowest cost across the world.

- ADITI PHADNIS

“This ‘chaiwala’ has made it possible for young people to make reels from every village. The day is not far when young men will be able to set up startups in every village.”

“1 GB data is now cheaper than a cup of tea,” he said.

The riposte was almost instant. Within hours Jan Suraaj leader Prashant Kishor replied: “Bihar ke logon ko naukri chahiye. Data nahin, beta chahiye” (Bihar wants jobs. It wants its sons back home, not cheap data). The jab was about the lack of jobs in Bihar, which was driving young men away from the state.

Migration is a recurring theme in the political cut and thrust all over Bihar. Possibly because it finds it embarrassing, the state government has made no systematic effort to find out how many leave Bihar every year to look for work and which districts are the biggest contributors to this relocation. The last reliable data was from the 2011 Census, which revealed around 7.4 million migrated from Bihar to other places in India, next only to Uttar Pradesh at 12.3 million.