PATNA: Service sector, rather than manufacturing sector, will lead Bihar’s growth effort in the near future, said a former senior banker of the HSBC Bank here on Saturday.
Talking to TOI here, HSBC Bank’s former senior vice-president Arpita Vinay said Bihar has sent out right signals in the recent years and a conducive environment has been created to put the state’s development on the fast track.
Arpita, who was born and brought up in undivided Bihar and whose father hails from Sitamarhi, said people at a Mckinzy function in Mumbai sometime back were speaking of Bihar and Gujarat in the same breath. Bihar’s GDP growth rate, one of the highest among states in recent years, has caught everyone’s attention. “The state has generated a lot of interest among entrepreneurs which, of course, has to be translated into investment.”
“However, this is likely to take some time. The state will have to show that improvements in infrastructure, law and order and governance etc are no flash in the pan. This transformation will have to be institutionalised,” she said.
To a question, she agreed Bihar is short on mineral resources and energy. Big investors are hard-nosed people. Hence, it would be a little surprise if capital-intensive industries take time to come to Bihar. “For Bihar to beckon investors, the return on investment in Bihar has to be higher than that on investments in developed states to make up for the higher risk that is still there.” The state can make up for its shortcomings by intelligently tapping its large human resource talent.
She said, “With rising affluence in Bihar, suppressed aspirations of middle class people are getting channelised. This consumption boom has driven the growth of service sector (read trading opportunities) in the state. Industrial growth in the context of Bihar need not mean manufacturing alone. With its huge human resources, the state can very well emerge as the hub of service industry, software for instance.”
On parallels between Bihar and Gujarat, as being randomly drawn in certain quarters, Arpita pointed out Gujarat has had a long tradition of entrepreneurship. “It has a deeply-entrenched culture of trade and business going back to thousands of years. Gujaratis settled across the globe are engaged in business. On the other hand, non-resident Biharis are engaged in salaried jobs and have little experience of trade and industry. They may not be the engine of industrial growth in Bihar, as Gujaratis can be.”
Read more: Service sector may propel Bihar growth: Ex-banker – The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/patna/Service-sector-may-propel-Bihar-growth-Ex-banker-/articleshow/7125061.cms#ixzz18cj9uTME