Bihar’s chief minister, Nitish Kumar, who runs India’s poorest and one of its most corrupt regions, announced a novel bid to tackle endemic poverty: taking the state’s bureaucrats out of governing.
His administration placed advertisements in newspapers this week, seeking a team of professionals to manage a $1.3 billion annual budget for programs involving job creation, housing, infrastructure and microfinance. In Bihar, a state of 103 million people in eastern India at the heart of a nationwide battle with Maoist guerrillas who draw support from impoverished peasants, a third of the population live in poverty, the World Bank says.
