Patna: Fulfilling one of his electoral promises, the Bihar government today adopted Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s “seven determinations”, including free toilet and drinking water pipeline supply to every household, in a bid to achieve “sushasan” (good governance). The future roadmap of development was spelt out by Governor Ram Nath Kovind in his speech at the joint session of the two Houses of the Bihar Legislature at the start of the session.
Kumar had made public his “seven determinations” during state elections to counter Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s special package of Rs 1.25 lakh crore along with Rs 40,000 crore of past schemes.
Kumar had estimated that his “seven determinations” would entail an expenditure of Rs 2.70 lakh crore in the next five years, which he had said on several occasions during polls that the state would arrange from its own resources and “would not go with begging bowl to the Centre.”
The programme christened as “Seven determinations of developed Bihar” has been adopted as state policy. The determinations particularly focuses on youths. It included credit card for students for loan upto Rs four lakh for pursuing higher education, establishment of counselling centres for employment and skill development, monthly allowance of Rs 1,000 for eight months twice within two years for searching jobs, venture capital of Rs 500 crore for young entrepreneurs and free wi-fi in college and universities.
Besides, the determinations also included linking every household in the towns and villages with drinking water supply pipeline and constructing toilet in every household. In addition to the seven new determinations, the state government highlighted its achievements in the field of road, electricity, education, agriculture and industry among others and promised to continue them with renewed vigour.
The Governor was flanked by new Speaker of Legislative Assembly Vijay Chaudhary and Chairman of Legislative Council Awdesh Narayan Singh at the joint address. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Leader of opposition Prem Kumar, his counterpart in Legislative Council Sushil Kumar Modi, Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Yadav and former Chief Minister and RJD leader Rabri Devi were present among others.
The Governor’s address to the joint session, which spelt out state government’s thrust areas at the very beginning, stated that rule of law would prevail in the state. Asserting that an environment of social harmony and brotherhood among different communities prevailed in the state, it pointed to peaceful conduct of festivals of different faiths recently.
Listing achievements of the past 10 years, the Governor’s speech highlighted that the state’s average growth rate was 10.2 per cent at the current price. The plan size increased from Rs 4,000 crore to more than Rs 57,000 now. The revenue collection has gone up by seven times during this period, it said.
“Bihar’s 54 per cent of the population was below poverty line earlier which has come down to 33 per cent now…more than 20 per cent reduction in poverty level goes to show that development has been inclusive in Bihar,” the Governor read from the text which was approved by the new Nitish Kumar government.
In the vital road sector, it was stated that the state government which has achieved the target of lowering travel time to the state capital from any district headquarter to six hours. “New target of 5 hours has been set now,” it added. Road Construction Department and Rural Works Department have together constructed or upgraded more than 66,500 km of roads in the past 10 years. More than 5,500 bridges have been built during this time.
In the field of electricity, the new Nitish Kumar government announced that all left out villages and hamlets would be electrified in the next two years. It claimed that while urban areas are getting electricity 22-24 hours daily, the rural areas on an average are receiving power for 14 hours on an average daily.
Power supply in the last 10 years jumped from 700 MW to 3400 MW now, it said. Works of more than Rs 8,000 crore are going on widespread improvement in production and distribution of power on the state.
In the field of Industries, the state has received an investment of about Rs 7,560 crore in past 10 years. In the education sector, around 2.5 crore students, both boys and girls would be provided scholarship, allowance and reward in the current year.
In his half-an-hour address, the Governor expressed hope that state government would take advantage of “positive environment” created by formation of a government with overwhelming majority and establish “new milestones of development.”
