Patna, May 25: Six months after his triumphant return to power, the biggest challenge to Nitish Kumar remains Nitish himself.

Nitish’s first full term, from 2005-2010, was dogged by internal bickering within the NDA and he also had a relatively stronger Opposition to contend with. The second time around, the chief minister appears to have ironed out dissension and the Opposition has little teeth.

As his government completes six months in office (on May 26), the chief minister finds himself battling hard to keep pace with the high expectations generated by his massive win. His biggest fight is not from outside, but from within — on how to meet the ambitious targets he has set for NDA-II.

“Are you yourself satisfied with your work and achievements?” The Telegraph asked Nitish on Wednesday morning.

“I am never satisfied,” replied the chief minister. “To me, satisfaction breeds complacency. What I can say with a sense of surety is that I am working to the best of my capacity. I have tried to be more focused to achieve nyay ke sath vikas (growth with justice). That is our lasting goal.”

The first six months of NDA-II has seen both Nitish and his deputy, Sushil Kumar Modi, emerging politically stronger and working in better coordination. While Nitish had several rebel MPs and legislators breathing down his neck in his first tenure, Modi survived a coup against him with a section of legislators revolting against him. However, the NDA’s brute majority — winning 206 of the 243 seats — gave the two leaders the much needed political muscle — most of the dissidents have fallen in line. Those who haven’t have been shown the door.

But if organisational dissent has been muzzled, there are rising murmurs of protest against the spurt in crime and corruption. People still complain of large-scale corruption — right from the block to the secretariat-level — despite the fact that Nitish has launched a crusade against graft. His measures have suffered some roadblocks too with the Supreme Court giving some sort of relief to the corruption case accused and former director-general of police, Narayan Mishra, and keeping the chief minister’s much vaunted legislation — the special court act to nail corrupt persons by confiscating their assets — under its consideration.

Patna — the seat of power — and the state’s big cities such as Muzaffarpur and Bhagalpur have witnessed a burst in crimes. There has been a spate of murders, kidnappings for ransom and theft. What has given a new headache to the NDA-II regime is an increase in juvenile crime.

Education, another of Nitish’s high priority areas, is also causing some anxiety to the government. There is reason to be optimistic — the recent census has shown the state recording 63.82 per cent literacy against 47 per cent in 2001. Part of the success is owing to the government’s decision to give bicycles to lakhs of girl students, appointing 1.5 lakh teachers and improving the infrastructure at the basic level of education. Still, the state’s literacy is below the national literacy rate of 74.04 per cent and Bihar has to go a long way to earn the tag of an educated state.

Moreover, caught in the war between the governor and the government, the universities continue to be in a bad shape. Recently, the high court struck down the appointments of the vice-chancellors of Magadh and Veer Kuer Singh universities made by the governor. The court, the deputy chief minister and even the human resource development minister, P.K. Shahi, have expressed “concern” over the manner in which Devanand Konwar is “spiking” their efforts towards the betterment of the state.

The power sector is a perennial area of worry. Over the past six months, the chief minister has worked to acquire over 2,700 acres of land for setting up the 3,300MW power plant in Nabinagar (Aurangabad). He has been doggedly pursuing the commissioning of the 2,200MW thermal power plant in Barh. Nitish has succeeded in getting the Centre’s go-ahead on 50 per cent share in NTPC’s upcoming plants in the state.

For Nitish, however, the Nabinagar take-off is imperative to drive home the message that his government means business. Industrial investment in Bihar continues to be low, primarily owing to the poor availability of power.

If the government has reasons to worry about in the power sector, it could afford a smile for its work in improving healthcare facilities. The latest pat on the back has come from Microsoft founder Bill Gates in whose assessment “Bihar has done wonders in the health sector because of the phenomenal leadership of Nitish Kumar”. The All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Patna is set to start functioning by next year and Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences will begin its bachelor and masters’ degree education in the next one year.