Purpose- The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of Textile and Apparel (T&A) industry to reduce absolute

poverty in the state of Bihar in India. Introduction The transformation of the Indian economy from a very slow growing, dependent country into a highgrowth, self-reliant, competitive industrial economy can be counted as one of the marvels of the economic history of the post-cold war world. The Indian economy is the world's tenth largest in terms of nominal GDP and the fourth largest in terms of purchasing power parity. Purchasing power parity (PPP) is the exchange rate that makes the cost of an item the same in two countries. According to the International Monetary Fund, India's nominal GDP stands at $1.53 trillion and will quadruple from 2007 to 2020. The service sector makes up 54 per cent of the GDP, the agricultural sector 28 per cent, and the industrial sector 18 per cent. India has the world's second largest labour force with 467 million workers and about 25 per cent of the world's new workers will be Indian in the next three years. Currently, half the world s outsourced IT services come from India, amounting to a $47 billion dollar industry and Indian textile and apparel industry also has its major contribution manifested in terms of its contribution to the industrial production, employment generation and foreign exchange earnings contributing 20 percent of industrial production, 18 percent of employment in the industrial sector and nearly 4 percent to the Gross Domestic Product. India's consumer market, currently the world's thirteenth largest, is expected to become fifth largest by 2030. Hence, the country now seems all set to become a major economic power in the world. However, to make the economy grow at a fairly high rate and to attain external account self-reliance, India has failed to create an equitable society to bring down economic poverty to a tolerable level. In a large country like India, growth rates are bound to vary among regions so it is the task of the state policy to implement compensatory measures to push forward the laggard regions and spread growth and development more evenly. However, during almost the entire period of national planning, a steady widening of regional disparities has taken place in terms of growth rates, poverty levels and in indices of social development. One-third of India's population (roughly equivalent to the entire population of the United States) lives below the poverty line and India is home to one-third of the world's poor people. Though the middle class has gained from recent positive economic developments, India suffers from substantial poverty. According to the new World Bank's estimates on poverty based on 2005 data, India has 456 million people, 41.6% of its population, living below the new international poverty line of $1.25 (PPP) per day. The World Bank further estimates that 33% of the global poor now reside in India. Moreover, India also has 828 million people, or 75.6% of the population living below $2 a day, compared to 72.2% for Sub-Saharan Africa. Therefore the main objective of this paper is to look into means of reducing absolute poverty and social and income disparity in one of the poorest states of India using textiles and apparel industry for generating employment and building infrastructure using co-creation among various players. The case study discussed in the paper highlights the issues in Bihar, a Hindi-belt state with a population of 104 million to find measures of inclusive growth and development to improve the socio-economic condition of Bihar and reducing poverty in absolute terms. This paper discusses India s profile and endowments and its Competitive and Concerned Position at the macroeconomic and microeconomic level with emphasis on Bihar. Additionally, it will describe the Indian textile and apparel industry and its role in enhancing the economy, highlighting the performance

and history of Bihar s textile industry.It also discusses primary research and qualitative analysis of the various issues and concerns in the state of Bihar in terms of poverty and inclusive growth. It also discusses interpretations and propositions from industry experts and economists, which would become a part of the findings and analysis to recommend suggestions to reduce absolute poverty and regional, social and income disparity in Bihar with the assistance of industrial growth in the textile and apparel sector in Bihar and conclude and suggest new frontiers of the issues that should be further elaborated.