Patna: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s admission in Rajya Sabha on "our failure" to control encephalitis in Bihar on Wednesday forced the state government to get into the action mode as the chief secretary held a high-level meeting on the issue for the first time since the outbreak of the brain fever disease which has claimed about 200 lives in different parts of the state.
While talking on encephalitis outbreak in Bihar, the PM said, “It is one of our biggest failures. It is a matter of shame. ” Till date, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar had been silent on the subject and evaded media persons.
The chief minister is under pressure to act as he failed to implement the decisions taken by the then union health minister Dr Harshvardhan who had visited Muzaffarpur in June 2014 and prepared an action plan to prevent encephalitis.
The recommendations were not implemented even after five years when another round of encephalitis outbreak has hit the state. Dr Harshvardhan again visited Muzaffarpur and regretted not implementing the 2014 decisions.
In 2014, BJP was not a partner in the government which was being run with the cooperation of the Congress and RJD while JDU’s Ramdhani Singh was the health minister.
Three senior BJP leaders – former union health minister Dr C P Thakur, Sachchidanand Rai and Tunnaji Pandey (both MLAs) – issued statements alleging the failure of the chief minister. Rai and Pandey even demanded the resignation of the chief minister.
By CHHAYA MISHRA
