Where in his reports and papers did Paul Appleby rank Bihar as the second-best governed state.  

Something has always puzzled me and perhaps readers of Business Standard have the answer. But let me begin with a quote from a recent speech delivered by the PM at the International Conference on Agriculture for Food, Nutritional Security and Rural Growth. This Conference was in Delhi and the speech was delivered on May 27. Here is the quote:  

"We do need a lot more attention to be paid to the management of our agricultural research and technology system. We must also ponder why is that Bihar which was chosen to be the original location of the Indian Institute of Agricultural Research, why it has failed to catch up with the rest of the country? Bihar, in 1950 was described as the second-best governed state in the very famous Paul Appleby Report. From that point, from that benchmark where Bihar is today in terms of its absorptive capacity? This is worthy of exploration, why a state like Bihar has not been able to catch up with the rest of the world?"  

I don't want to focus on why Bihar has fallen behind. My being puzzled has more to do with facts. We have heard this before, the Paul Appleby Report ranking Bihar as the second-best governed state, the first being UP. This factual assertion has now been endorsed by no less a person than the PM himself.  

"The Bihar administration was considered to be one of the best in India by Paul Appleby in the fifties, but Bihar is now synonymous with everything that could be called bad about administration." This is another such quote from a journalistic piece and I needn't name the author.  

Paul Henson Appleby (1891-1963) visited India in 1952, 1954, 1956 and 1960-61. As a consultant to the Ford Foundation, he produced his first report in 1953, titled, "Public Administration in India: Report of a Survey". And there was a second report in 1956, titled, "Re-examination of India's Administrative System with Special Reference to Administration of Government's Industrial and Commercial Enterprises". So the PM's speech-writers have got the year wrong. There was no Paul Appleby Report in 1950. The year should have been either 1953 or 1956. Rather interestingly, in the first report, Appleby stated the following. "I have come gradually to a general judgement that now would rate the government of India among the dozen or so most advanced governments of the world." There was emphasis on the word "now" and Appleby was primarily referring to the democratic structure, not to efficiency of administration or effective governance. Nonetheless, the compliment to India is remarkable.