How to make India richer
It would help if more people moved within the country
![](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20240323_ASP001.jpg)
Every day roughly two dozen trains set off from Delhi, India’s capital, to Bihar, an impoverished eastern state. This week more will be added to ferry the thousands of Biharis heading home to celebrate Holi, the Hindu festival of colours that falls on March 25th this year. Even so, there will be many more people hoping to travel than train seats—not just on the Delhi-Bihar routes, but also on the hundreds elsewhere in India that carry people between its pockets of prosperity and its hinterlands.
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This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “Immobile republic”
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