Development Dilemmas

Bihar

• Poorest state - 86% live in rural areas
• Average incomes - 6000 rupees (£75)
• 55% live below poverty line
• 26 of India's poorest districts in Bihar

Little investment from companies because people can't afford basic services

• 58.8% had electricity and 12% water flushed toilets
• 80% used wood and 35% cow dung which causes lung disease

Farming in the rural periphery

• Most farmers rent small plots
• 'Sharecropping' system - pay half of produce to the landlord
• Most only afford subsistence 
• With no surplus crops farmers can't invest in new maxhinery or fertiliser
• Trapped in cycle of poverty
• Bihar - 54.2% households are landless
• Many borrow money with high interest rates
• Malnutrition is common 

Women and poverty 

• Bihar fertility rate is 4.4 and Maharashtra is 2.1
• Need more children to work on land ancd collect wood or water
• Women uneducated - have poorest literacy rates so get married young 
• 35% go to primary school, 8% go to upper primary and 2% reach Year 12 and 13
• Caste-based society - people in higher castes are literate and thoser in lowest have zero literacy

• Rainfall is seasonal and unreliable
• As population icreases, demand for water rises
• Need super dams to:
  • encourage economic development by providing drinking water and electricity
  • open up dry lands for farming by irrigation
• Large dams make it possible to store monsoon rains during the dry season

Benefits

• Mulipurpose - provides 3.5 billions of water a day and 1450MW of HEP
• Series of canals distribute water to other states. 
• They will irrigate 1.8 million hectares of farmland in driest parts 

Problems

• 234 villages drowned so far, forcing 320,000 out
• Historic sites lost
• Few villages can afford electricity 
• Irrigation increases soil salinity making it less useable
• Silt will reduce reservoir's capacity
• Fertile sediment lost 
• Trigger earthquake activity
• Good quality farmland submerged

Fuelwood crisis

• Each family needs 25-30kg of firewood per week
• Becoming more scarse due to increase in population
• Have to walk further to find it 
• Cow dung being used as a fuel 
• Has health risks such as lung and eye problems and is better fertiliser

Lack of education

• Responsible for home and domestic chores
• Little education so hogh fetility rate

Solution 

• Cow dung - Biogas

Benefits

For people

• Smoke and ash free so reduces health problems
• Women and children dreeee from gathering wood
• 80% use time to earn extra uncome
• Cow dung is no longer stored in home 
• Sanitation and health is improved
• 200,000 jobs created 

For the environment

• Slurry created is better fertiliser
• 277 tonnes of CO2 emission savings
• Produce electricity used for pumping domestic and irrigation water

• Involve local people in decision making
• Be affordable
• Promote good health 
• Protect and encourage native plants and animals
• Use land thats been developed before
• Minimise waste and encourage re-use and recycling
• Minimise energy use
• Minimise water use and use rainwater for irrigation
• Minimise pollution
• Offer benefits to the poor as well as the wealthy