Bagaha (West Champaran), April 20: Chief minister Nitish Kumar today announced 143 development schemes and inaugurated 103 more in the Tharu belt of the district to win the hearts of the traditional tribal forest dweller community.
On the final day of his visit to West Champaran, Nitish addressed a gathering at Harnatand, around 62km northwest of Bagaha, where he announced the schemes, worth around Rs 130.90 crore. The schemes included water resources projects as well as roads and education. The schemes that were inaugurated were worth Rs 24.58 crore. All the projects are aimed at the development of the Tharu community and other Scheduled Tribes living along the India-Nepal border.
Addressing a gathering at the village around noon, Nitish also emphasised on education and said it would free people from the problems of child marriage and other ills. He said: “The government has recognised two high schools in the Tharu belt and another in a remote diara in Bhagalpur district.” The government would now foot the finances of the schools.
The recognised schools are Yugul Sah Janjati Balika Uchha Vidyalaya, Harnatand, and Jagannath Uchha Vidyalaya, Bakhari, in West Champaran and another in Teentanga diara in Bhagalpur’s Naugachia sub-division.
In a bid to bring the backward pockets of the state on a par with the developed ones, Nitish announced the decision to set up a high school each in 8,422 gram panchayats within the next five years. Of them, construction of around 1,000 high schools would be completed in the current fiscal, he said.
The gathering was attended by minister Chandra Mohan Rai and other leaders, including Bettiah MP Sanjay Jaiswal and MLAs Renu Devi and Satish Dubey. After addressing the people, Nitish left for Patna around 2pm.
Yesterday, water resources minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary had remained silent on the issue of dry canals in the area. Today, when Tharu leader Sharda Prasad and MLC Rajesh Ram raised the issue before the chief minister, Chaudhary assured the people of water in the canals within a week or 10 days.
