Background :-

• The multidimensional poverty index uses 10 indicators to measure poverty in three dimensions: education, health and living standards. In its 2018 update, India’s MPI index in 2018 was 0.121, placing it 53rd out of 105 developing countries for which data was available.
• Poor nutrition was the largest contributor to India’s multidimensional poverty while insufficient access to clean water and child mortality contributed the least. 91 of the poorest 100 districts  are concentrated in the seven states of erstwhile BIMARU states namely Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh.

Why BIMARU states are behind in social indicators :-

• Growth rate:-
  • Population growth is the main problem in this states. Due to high population growth, population and resource are not in equilibrium but are disturbed to achieve the goal of population stabilization and sustainable development.
  • Higher population growth in these states is factor which restricts the development of these states. When already ill-developed states would face higher increase in population its pretty obvious for the development rate to go down further.
• These states are still lagging behind than other Indian states on the basis of literacy, education, urbanization and income. On the other hand, they are very high fertility and low reproductive health of women.
  • Lack of Literacy can termed as the main factor for increase in population of these states which in turn degrades the development rate of them.
  • Orissa have high poverty and high mortality due to shortage of food and nutrition, especially tribal group.
• Corruption:-
  • Corruption is the major factor in these states which gives a healthy development to the poverty of these states. Corruption-Index of these states is found to be the worse.
• Political Rivalries is yet another reason which restricts these states to develop further. The political leaders are very much busy in rivalries than planning and executing something for their state which would be in the interest of the common people.
• Despite being the Producers of many important materials and products like coal, steel etc., they still have no public-sector unit has its head-quarters in these states.
• Lack of involvement of local people in the planning process of these states is another reason for its limited development. 
• Lack of investments in Irrigation and Flood control is another vital factor. These states experience the highest amount of flood problems but even then year after year there has not been done any significant development in this department.
• Under-Utilisation of Funds is yet another reason for less development in these states. Even after allotting a fair amount of funds from the centre these states do not experience any specific advancement.
• Higher Crime Rate is another factor which contributes to the ill-development of these states.
• Lack of perspective in the planning exercise:-
  • For example, even though large portions of the national highway schemes: the Golden Quadrilateral and the East West corridor pass through the so-called BIMARU states, its alignment would not serve the population of these states
• Social :-
  • The persistence of discriminatory feudalist structures that don’t allow the markets to function independently, causing growth to disproportionately benefit the dominant castes

However it is not that improvement in indices is not being seen but that the pace of improvement is quite slow. Consistently high growth in recent years has been observed in some of these states showing that the situation is structurally changing.

What needs to be done ?

• Need to tackle high fertility, government can work in a Bangladesh family planning approach model with collaboration of united nation population group and NGOs. 
• Reduce poverty by a community approach by using the self help group formula.
• Government needs to take crude action against the female foeticide and abortion cases that affect these states.
• There is a need for effective implementation of government schemes in these states like aspirational districts initiative, Ayushmann Bharat, Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bhima Yojana etc.
• Inclusive education is necessary with better outcomes .
• Sanitation needs to be strictly taken care of to avoid diseases.