Big was only the dream; small is the reality, and future. For a state with little land for industries, even the chief minister has to change tack from thinking and arguing for “big investment” to small industries a couple of days ago.

In the past year since Nitish Kumar celebrated seven years in office, the industrial scenario has changed hardly a bit.

With problems still the same at least on the land and power fronts, the government now has decided to play on its strengths, experts feel. The future of industrialisation of Bihar and its growth now rests in the cradle of small industries, particularly those which are agro based and centering on food processing.

On Wednesday, speaking at the State Level Bankers’ Committee meeting,

Nitish, while accepting that the industrialisation process is very slow, added that he was okay with small investments, particularly in the agro-based industries sector.

“There are two angles to it. The state now has started to actively encourage and project the food processing industry. During the Udyami Panchayat, organised in September, the industry department officials had said Rs 5,000 crore of the total investment of Rs 6,000 crore in the state has come from people within Bihar. This figure shows that investment from outside is still a dream even after a year,” said an industrialist.

He also charted out why investment from outside was important. “It is the investments from outside which generally are big-ticket ones. The food processing industry in the state has seen partial success despite some glaring embarrassments and the state wants to play on the same now rather than sitting and waiting for big money to come from outside. If one looks at the figures, the local industries tend to invest not more than an average of Rs 2 crore to Rs 5 crore in any form of industries they are setting up. Hence comes the statement of the chief minister that ‘Boodh boodh se hi ghat bharta hai (A pot is filled with drops of water)’,” the industrialist said.

Hardly anything has changed on the industry front if one looks at the period of one year — from November 2012 to October 2013.

There is no doubt that land is the biggest problem at present. The same was the situation in 2012 and the years before that. However, the state’s focus was on the power sector and because of political reasons, the government deliberately refused to address the land problem. This year, however, the government realised the same but refused to acquire land either — again due to political reasons. Sources in the government have maintained the fact that land acquisition in Bihar was very difficult as land was considered to be pride for most of the landowners and the government did not want a Singur-like situation in the state.

“Much after the government had partially improved the power situation, they got their eyes on land. However, the government did not acquire land and brought out some policies aimed at getting land from private parties. None of the policies clicked. The Exit Policy launched by Biada got little response and the Private Industrial Area Policy is yet to take off. Even the ‘Aao Bihar’ initiative, which saw a sudden comeback a few months ago in the form of some landowners ready to provide land, has not quite seen a sunrise with the government not contacting the landowners even after months now,” A.K. Sharma, an industrialist involved in food processing and based in Muzaffarpur, said.

He added: “The crux lies that the state was successful in getting less or no land and hence there is no space literally for big investments in Bihar. Moreover, the state has been always sticking on to the fact and has asked many investors, mostly those with big investments, to find their own land. This too has acted as a deterrent for investors. Huge

groups like Taj, Medanta among others have come and gone as they could not get land. Small plots of land means small-time investments and the state has realised it now.”

Some industrialists though added that the state was serious toward all forms of investments. “It is not that no investment is taking place. The investments are just small in nature and money and many of them can add up and prove to be like any other big investment in times to come,” P.K. Agarwal, the president of Bihar Chamber of Commerce and Industries, said.