There has been an impressive decline in poverty ratio from 54 per cent in 2004-05 to 33 per cent in 2011-12, while rural road infrastructure has grown by 41 per cent and rural road density 37 per cent, he said.
Rawat said that the grant of special status to Bihar, recently recognised by the Raghuram Rajan panel as among 10 least developed states, would fast track economic development in Bihar and bring in private investment.
The special status grant to Bihar would be in the interest of not only the state, but in the national interest as no country could sustain development without pushing growth in poor and backward states through incentives and financial devolution, he said.
The backwardness of Bihar and other least developed states was bound to adversely affect the growth story of India, Rawat said, adding that the special status grant could be one of the measures to push development activities in the state.
