What was the Per Capita Net State Domestic Product at Current Prices for Bihar for the fiscal year 2022-23, based on the base year 2011-12 ?

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — B, ₹ 54,111. Two independent checks converge on this figure. First, the ceiling: PRS Legislative Research's analysis of the Bihar Budget 2024-25 records the state's per capita GSDP for 2022-23 at current prices as ₹59,637. Net State Domestic Product is GSDP minus the consumption of fixed capital — depreciation — so per capita NSDP must be smaller than ₹59,637, which rules out option (d) ₹61,434 outright as arithmetically impossible. Of the three that remain, ₹54,111 implies depreciation of about 9 per cent of state output, which is the usual order for an Indian state; ₹47,498 would imply about 20 per cent and ₹42,083 about 29 per cent, both far outside any plausible range. Second, the growth check: the four options are not random numbers but a run of consecutive years in the same series, and the step from ₹47,498 to ₹54,111 is a rise of 13.9 per cent — which matches the independently reported fact that Bihar's per capita GSDP in 2022-23 rose 14 per cent over the previous year. That is the year the question asks about. For scale, ₹54,111 is roughly 32 per cent of India's per capita net national income at current prices in the same year, ₹1,69,496, which is why Bihar remains the state with the lowest per capita income in the country despite double-digit nominal growth.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) This is an earlier year in the same series — the level around the COVID-affected 2020-21, when output contracted. Against a per capita GSDP of ₹59,637 for 2022-23 it would imply depreciation of nearly 29 per cent of state output, which no state's accounts show.  (c) The immediately preceding year in the series and therefore the closest trap: a candidate who remembers the number but not the year picks this. Applying the 14 per cent nominal rise recorded for 2022-23 to this figure lands on ₹54,111, which is the answer the question wants.  (d) Larger than Bihar's per capita GSDP of ₹59,637 for the same year, which is impossible: NSDP is GSDP after subtracting depreciation, so it can never exceed it. This figure belongs to the following year of the series, not to 2022-23.

Concept: Gross State Domestic Product is the total value of goods and services produced within a state in a year. Subtract the consumption of fixed capital — the wearing out of machinery, buildings and infrastructure — and you get Net State Domestic Product; divide that by the state's population and you get per capita NSDP, the standard headline measure of a state's average income. Two qualifiers in the question do real work. 'At current prices' means the figure is nominal, so it includes inflation and cannot be compared across years as a measure of real growth; the constant-price series, which strips inflation out, is always the smaller number and the slower-growing one. 'Base year 2011-12' identifies which National Accounts series the estimate belongs to — India moved from a 2004-05 base to a 2011-12 base in January 2015, and figures from different bases are not comparable.

State PCS 2024 Q127 — Economy PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2024 Q127 — Economy PYQ with Answer