Nitish Kumar at Dharhara village in Bhagalpur on Saturday. Picture by Amit Kumar

Dharhara (Bhagalpur), June 2: Anil Kumar and wife Anita Kumari of Dharhara village in the Naugachia sub-division today felt proud of having a daughter.

The couple also have a three-year-old son. But it was their three-month-old daughter, Anjali, who was the cynosure of all eyes as chief minister Nitish Kumar took her in his lap and lauded the residents of Dharhara for their “exemplary effort” of planting at least 10 trees to celebrate the birth of a girl.

Kumar visited Dharhara, located around 25km from Bhagalpur district headquarters, as part of his Seva Yatra to the district and planted a mango sapling in the name of Anjali. The chief minister, who had initiated the plantation programmes on the occasion of the birth of a girl in the village in 2010, today appeared in a jovial mood with Anjali in his lap. “Look how sweet she is. She is the pride of the village,” he told health minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey and water resources minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary, who accompanied the chief minister.

“The villagers have shown exemplary work by adopting the practice of planting at least 10 saplings for the birth of a girl. I would like to visit the village every year to encourage them,” he said.

Anil, a laboratory technician at a steel factory in Durgapur (Bengal), said: “Plantation of trees after the birth of a girl in our village was common. But since Nitishji started visiting our village, I came to know the importance of the girl child,” he said.

On the last day of the three-day Seva Yatra in Bhagalpur, Nitish, who earlier in the day held a high-level review meeting with officials concerned of Bhagalpur and Banka, reached Bijay Ghat, around 32km from the district headquarters falling under Naugachia sub-division. On July 2010, Kumar had laid the foundation of the 1.84-km-long bridge across the Kosi. The bridge would be completed at a cost of Rs 219.47 crore provided by Nabard.

“The bridge would connect Kosi region to Bhagalpur, along with other districts of eastern Bihar, as well as the northeastern parts of the country,” he said.

Kumar also visited Pakra village under the Naugachia sub-division and inspected the Manjusha art exhibition by rural entrepreneurs, mostly women who had earlier formulated self-help groups with patronage from Nabard.