On 15 November 2025, exactly 22 years before India celebrates the centenary of Independence, Bihar released a 312-page blueprint that reads like a fusion of Singapore’s land-use plan and California’s climate mandate, sprinkled with the earthy pragmatism of a state that still sends more migrant workers than any other. The document, officially called “Bihar@100—Antyodaya to Sarvodaya” but marketed simply as “Century Vision,” commits the state to a $1 trillion economy by 2047 (nominal, 2025 base), a per-capita income of $6,200, and—most eye-catching—net-zero emissions 12 years before the national target. The road map is broken into five “20-year missions” that overlap like concentric circles: Water, Energy, Human Capital, Urban Renaissance and Governance 4.0. Each mission carries quantifiable milestones, a financing mix, and a chief-minister-level monitoring dashboard that turns amber if a KPI slips two consecutive quarters.
Mission Water starts with a jaw-dropping statistic: only 3.2 % of urban households in Bihar receive piped water that meets Jal Jeevan Mission quality norms, compared with 54 % nationwide. The goal is 80 % by 2047, requiring 4.8 million new connections and 11,000 km of distribution network. The capital tag is ₹88,000 crore, financed through a 30-year Amrit Bond that offers 7.8 % tax-free interest, oversubscribed 2.4 times within 48 hours of listing on the Bombay Stock Exchange. The engineering innovation is a bulk-water grid that links the Gandak, Kosi and Sone rivers through a 1,200-km stainless-steel pipeline, allowing surplus monsoon run-off to be pumped to deficit districts at a cost of 48 paise per kilolitre—cheaper than tanker water in most cities. Smart meters with NB-IoT chips will record consumption every 15 minutes; any household that uses less than 40 litres per capita per day triggers an automatic SMS with water-saving tips and a 5 % rebate on the next bill, nudging behavioural change rather than policing it.
Mission Energy commits to 14 GW of solar, 4 GW of pumped-hydro and 2 GW of green hydrogen by 2047, effectively turning Bihar into a net exporter of renewable power despite having no coal or gas. The 1.5 GW floating-solar project on the Kosi reservoir (detailed in Article 6) is the first tile in this mosaic; by 2030 the same template will be replicated on 18 large reservoirs, adding 8 GW. A 2 GW pumped-hydro station is planned at Likhisarai, where abandoned copper mines 320 metres deep can function as lower reservoirs. The hydrogen play is more futuristic: a 500-MW electrolyser fed by surplus solar will produce 62,000 tonnes of green ammonia annually, half of which will be exported through a proposed inland waterway terminal on the Ganga. The entire energy mission is capitalised at ₹1.2 trillion, with 60 % coming from domestic green bonds, 25 % from development banks (ADB, KfW) and 15 % through a unique “energy citizen” scheme where residents can buy ₹10,000 zero-coupon bonds that mature in 20 years and are tradeable on the exchanges, turning decarbonisation into a mass asset class.
Human Capital is where the social-justice DNA shows up. The target is to raise average years of schooling from 6.2 to 12.4, exactly the gap that separates Bihar from Malaysia today. The instrument is a ₹2-lakh-crore endowment—called the Nalanda Fund—seeded with disinvestment proceeds of state PSUs and topped up annually with 1 % of GST share. Only the interest (assumed 8 % nominal) will be spent, ensuring the corpus lasts a century. The money will finance everything from district libraries with 3-D printers to a state-wide mesh of 5,000 “skill satellites,” each a 100-seat micro-campus teaching courses that range from blockchain auditing to drone repair. Every 18-year-old will receive a ₹1 lakh “skills wallet” loaded on a UPI app; the amount can be spent at any accredited training provider, public or private, turning citizens into purchasers rather than supplicants.
Urban Renaissance envisages 14 new “smart cities” along the proposed Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor, but the definition is refreshingly different from the Centre’s 2015 vintage. Here, “smart” begins with basics: 24-hour tap water, sewage treatment that meets bathing-quality norms, and a bus every 10 minutes that costs less than 5 % of daily minimum wage. The flagship project is a 250-km conurbation called Magadh Metro-Region, linking Patna, Bihta, Jehanabad and Gaya through a driver-less metro-rail that will run on the central verge of a 12-lane expressway, eliminating the need for costly tunnel boring. The metro will be financed not through viability-gap funding but through a land-value capture model: the state has acquired 3,200 hectares along the alignment at today’s agricultural rates; when the metro opens, the uplift will be monetised through lease premiums, estimated to yield ₹34,000 crore over 20 years. By 2047, 45 % of Bihar’s population will live in urban settlements, up from 11 % today, but the plan insists on “urbanisation without slums” by mandating that 20 % of any new residential layout be reserved for rental housing managed by cooperatives, ensuring that migrants are not relegated to informal colonies.
Governance 4.0 is the invisible operating system. Every government service—birth certificate to death certificate—will be available through an open-source API that fintech start-ups can plug into, creating a secondary market of “government-as-a-service.” Blockchain land records will make litigation redundant; the target is to bring average case-pendency for property disputes from the current 22 years to under 12 months by 2035. A “one-budget” rule will merge plan and non-plan heads, and the chief minister will face a live televised press conference every quarter where independent data scientists present dashboard numbers that cannot be massaged by bureaucratese. Failure to meet more than three critical KPIs in a calendar year will automatically trigger an “accountability week” during which the assembly sits extended hours to discuss corrective action—an in-built self-correction mechanism rare in Indian planning.
Financing the entire vision needs ₹38 trillion over 22 years, roughly 5.5 % of India’s projected GDP in 2047. Bihar’s own tax revenue is expected to grow at 12 % nominal, but that still leaves a gap of ₹9 trillion. The document plugs it through four new instruments: a state sovereign wealth fund seeded with mining royalties and disinvestment proceeds, a municipal bond market where cities raise money against future property tax, a “century stamp-duty” of 0.1 % on every property transaction that goes into an escrow for urban infrastructure, and a green surcharge on petrol and diesel that will taper as EV adoption rises. The underlying assumption is that Bihar’s economy will grow at 13.8 % nominal for the first decade and 11 % thereafter—aggressive but not outlandish given that Gujarat and Maharashtra sustained similar rates for 20 years starting 1991.
Critics dismiss the document as “Nitish’s fantasy comic,” pointing to the state’s chequered history of missing five-year-plan targets by miles. The rejoinder comes from the numbers themselves: Bihar has already doubled its GDP in the last eight years, and the political consensus around development is now so broad that even the opposition manifesto promises continuity. Whether the next two decades throw up black-swan events—climate shocks, geopolitical conflicts, technological disruptions—no one can predict, but for the first time a heartland state has told its citizens not just to dream but to dream in 22-year 4K resolution. If Bihar@100 even achieves 70 % of what it promises, the phrase “Bihari” will no longer be a stereotype for migration but a badge of cutting-edge citizenship in the world’s most populous democracy.