Patna, March 5: Road construction minister Nand Kishore Yadav on Tuesday accused the Centre of adopting a step-motherly attitude towards Bihar in granting funds for national highways.

Yadav’s comment was part of a debate in the Assembly on approval of demands of Rs 4,983 crore for the road construction department during the financial year 2013-14.

“The Centre always neglects Bihar when it comes to granting funds for national highways. When the question arises about converting two lanes into four lanes under the National Highway Development Programme, our state is hardly taken into account,” said the minister.

“Other states, which are not larger than Bihar in terms of population, have got more national highways compared to our state. We are number 26 in India in terms of number of national highways but we are number three in population. On every one lakh population, Bihar has 3.51km of national highway. This is way behind other states,” he added.