Shaibal Gupta at the IGC conference. Telegraph picture

A special session on Bihar’s economic development was held at International Growth Centre’s (IGC) annual conference, “Growth Week”, at the London School of Economics.

The session, chaired by Shaibal Gupta, co-country director, IGC Bihar, kicked off with a presentation by Clement Imbert (Oxford University), who presented the findings of his study “Information Technology, Transparency and Corruption in Public Programs: Evidence from a Large Workfare Program in Bihar”.

Imbert showed that the introduction of centrally monitored performance monitoring system (CPSMS) in transferring funds to panchayats resulted in reduction in expenditure at the panchayat level but without having any negative impact on employment creation and asset construction. The CPSMS seems to have reduced leak in MNREGA by reducing the asset level of panchayat-level NREGA functionaries.

Johannes Urpelainen of Columbia University made the second presentation. He shared the preliminary results of his study “Solar Power of Street Vendors: problems with the centralised charging stations in urban markets”. He argued that energy poverty among the urban street vendors was a major hurdle, around 80 per cent of vendors rated improved lighting as the “top priority”. P.P. Ghosh discussed these presentations and made several useful comments.

The second part of the session was a panel discussion on “What Next for Bihar”. Senior policymakers from Bihar — chief secretary Anjani Kumar Singh, finance secretary Rameshwar Singh, CM’s secretary Sanjay Kumar Singh — took part in the session.