Opinion Tejashwi Yadav’s promise of one government job to every family is fiscally impossible. It is merely political theatre

According to the 2023 caste-based survey, Bihar has approximately 13.07 crore individuals belonging to 27.7 million families. Of these, just 1.57 per cent of total individuals are employed in the government sector. Even if we assume one job per family, that means around 2.1 million families currently have a member drawing a government salary. The remaining 25.6 million families, nearly the entire state, would require brand-new government jobs to meet the slogan’s literal promise.

Do the math, and the scale is staggering. Bihar’s revised budget estimates for 2024–25 total around Rs 3,27,425 crore, with Rs 98,395 crore already going to salaries, pensions and interest payments, which is almost one-third of the state’s total expenditure. If the government has to hire one new employee for each of the uncovered families at an average salary of Rs 2.5 lakh a year (based on current government salary expenditure per employee, with a minor increment expected after implementation of the eighth pay commission), the annual salary bill would increase by Rs 6.4 lakh crore, nearly double the state’s entire budget and nearly 2.5 times India’s total central government salary bill.

As per the promise of fulfilling this goal in 20 months, even a modest 50 per cent rollout per year (roughly 12.8 million jobs) would cost Rs 3.2 lakh crore annually, excluding the existing government salary bill of around Rs 46,000 crore (2024-25 revised estimates), which will rise further with the implementation of the eighth pay commission. Thus, in fiscal terms, this is not merely unrealistic; it seems impossible. Given the limitation that under the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act, Bihar’s deficit cannot exceed 3 per cent of its GSDP (which stands at about Rs. 10.97 lakh crore). Financing Rs 6.4 lakh crore in additional annual salary would blow past this limit and collapse the state’s public finance overnight. No amount of taxation, borrowing, or central assistance could sustain such a scheme without bankrupting the state or dismantling its essential public services.

But the problem is not just fiscal, it is also structural, embedded in the very fabric of Bihar’s society. The recent caste survey data of the state reveal the deep inequalities that make such a universal promise unworkable. While overall literacy stands at 79.7 per cent, only 9.2 per cent of the population has completed higher secondary education, and around 7.46 per cent hold a graduate or higher degree. Among marginalised groups, the figures are bleaker still: 3.44 per cent for SCs, 4.95 per cent for EBCs, and 3.87 per cent for STs with a graduation or higher qualification. Most government jobs require at least matriculation, and clerical or technical jobs demand graduation or professional qualifications. At the macro level, this could mean that only about one in around four households could even provide a member qualified for recruitment. This makes the idea of “one government job per family” structurally and socially unattainable. Unless the state first launches a decade-long campaign of education and skilling, such mass hiring would either dilute job standards or benefit only the already educated population, and may reinforce caste-wise inequality instead of dismantling it.

Also, the deeper truth is that Bihar’s economy lacks both the fiscal capacity to fund the dream and the human capital to staff it. The state contributes less than 1 per cent of India’s total income tax collections, one of the lowest shares in the country, and has among India’s lowest credit–deposit ratios, signalling already fragile private investment.

In such an environment, creating millions of new, salaried government positions every year would require either massive deficit spending or external grants on a scale unprecedented in Indian federalism. Also, constitutional provisions temper such idealism with pragmatism: Article 41 urges states to secure the right to work “within their economic capacity,” while Article 16 guarantees equality of opportunity in public employment. Any viable implementation would therefore require clear eligibility rules, including targeting only families with no existing government jobs, and recruitment through open, competitive processes consistent with constitutional reservation norms.

On the contrary, Bihar’s government recruitment machinery, such as the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC), is already stretched to its limits. Large-scale teacher drives have filled around 2.5 lakh teaching positions in schools in recent years and assistant professors in universities, alongside other government hirings across departments. The state’s core administrative backbone, including schools, hospitals, panchayats, and offices, employs a major part of the government staff. Injecting millions of new recruits without expanding infrastructure would create more employees than actual tasks, leaving teachers, health workers, and rural staff without workplaces. With capital budgets insufficient to build schools, hospitals, and offices, such a scheme risks “ghost employment”, issuing paychecks without productive output and undermining public service delivery.

The caste survey exposes Bihar’s twin deficit in education and opportunity. The real challenge lies in creating sustainable livelihoods, not merely generating jobs. A more credible approach would be to establish a Family Livelihood Guarantee Mission, integrating MGNREGA-style wage employment with self-employment incentives, JEEViKA programmes, cooperative farming initiatives, and MSME-linked skill development schemes. Expanding employment guarantees to urban areas and investing in digital literacy could generate income security without wrecking fiscal stability. That shift from entitlement to empowerment aligns with both constitutional prudence and fiscal sanity.

Ultimately, the promise works as political theatre but collapses as public policy. Classical economics warns of inefficiency, public finance exposes the arithmetic impossibility, constitutional law limits populism, and Bihar’s own survey data show the structural unpreparedness. Unless reimagined as a broader mission for livelihood security, Tejashwi Yadav’s ambitious promise risks becoming what its critics already call it — a political satire dressed as a welfare revolution.

The writer teaches at Patna University