The Union government’s records show Bihar is the worst performer in the national total sanitation campaign. Of those without access to sanitation in India, one out of every six persons lives in Bihar. What is government doing to improve the situation?

I admit that the sanitation campaign never gained momentum in the state. I feel ashamed when I come across men and women defecating on the roadside after dark or before dawn. Sanitation is not like other schemes for which tenders can be called, planned and executed. It is more about awareness among people. I need people’s co-operation for this campaign to be successful. We need to change people’s mindset. Everyone has to understand that in a civilised society, lavatories and toilets are as important as food, clothes and home. The government is also partially responsible for the lack of awareness. There has been lack of focus and seriousness towards improving basic parameters of development like these. We never went big on awareness campaigns.

Secondly, for long, the campaign has been dependent on a number of NGOs who have little work other than filling up their own pockets. Most of them are not dedicated enough and the services and money given as motivation amount do not reach the beneficiaries. It pained me to discover that sanitation is very poor in many villages in the state, which have already been declared as Nirmal villages. We have, therefore, decided to go without these kinds of NGOs now. We are now contemplating on going directly to the people with such schemes and campaigns. We will focus more on educating people and making them aware of hygienic living. We will organise programmes in local language. We will urge people to construct toilets on their own and later we will reimburse the cost. The detailed work plan is being prepared.

You have always been hailed for your honest, clean and no-nonsense image. You created ripples as health minister during NDA-I regime and were later dropped from the cabinet like a hot potato. However, this tenure as PHED minister has largely remained quiet and controversy-free. Is this a conscious political move? What are the constraints coming in way of work?

I believe in honest work and whatever my profile is, I will work to the best of my capabilities. The biggest constraint that I have faced in my department is that of work culture. Ever since I have taken charge, I have been trying to get things in order. We have been organising regular meetings of officials and have been monitoring the progress of various sanitation and water supply projects and schemes. There are many infrastructure majors working on various projects in the state but their pace has been extremely slow. We have now started monitoring their work and have warned them to pick up.

What do you think has been your achievement in the past nine months as PHED minister?

What I consider as a personal source of satisfaction is the fact that I tried ensuring proper availability of potable water in southern parts of the state. For the past several years, these districts had been facing acute shortage of drinking water owing to drought-like situation. We prepared a contingency plan to deal with this situation like previous years. We got many hand pumps installed and used risers in many areas to extract water from deeper layers. Water sources were identified, core committees were formed in these districts under the chairmanship of the DMs. They have been asked to take care of the drinking water needs of rural and urban areas falling under their jurisdiction by making provisions of water tankers. Crash teams have been prepared in every village with mechanics who will directly report to junior engineers in case of lack of water supply. Helplines for water-related complaints and feedback have been started in all districts. Though the crisis is that deep so far, we are prepared to face any adverse situation. However, I hope the nature and rain god remains kind on the state.

The CAG report, tabled recently in the Legislative Assembly, pointed out that about 25 per cent of the fund allocated by the Union government for sanitation schemes since 1999 was returned unutilised. What went wrong?

We have largely been dependent on NGOs for implementation and execution of many schemes but the results have been very poor. We will now go on our own and will not collaborate with NGOs.

Our decision to associate with them has yielded no results. In fact, we are also considering blacklisting many of them. An action plan is being prepared to decide our future course of action.

The department has acute shortage of manpower, engineers in particular. Are steps being taken to recruit more engineers?

For the past several years there have been absolutely no recruitment in the department and therefore a crisis-like situation has arisen, as posts of up to 70 per cent engineers are vacant. We have now asked Bihar Public Service Commission to recruit 70 assistant engineers for the department. The applications have already been invited and the process of appointing youths is on. Junior engineers, however, are appointed by the irrigation department which is nodal department for us. We have asked them to recruit junior engineers for us and we hope that at least some of the vacancies would get filled up soon.

Tell us about your life’s journey so far.

Born in a farmer’s family in a village in Begusarai district, on July 27, 1939, Rai's ancestors from both paternal and maternal sides took part in the freedom struggle and were politically aware, which got him interested in politics. He completed his school and college education from Patna. After completing his master’s degree, Rai even worked as a trainee journalist with a leading English daily in Delhi. But he did not continue there for long and went back to his home district to take up a lecturer’s job in a college. It was then that Rai got into politics and started fighting Assembly elections.

Rai won from his home constituency, Jamnagar, five times before shifting to Chanpatiya in West Champaran after the seat was reserved for SC/ST candidates during 2005 Assembly elections. Rai was made health minister after NDA came to power that year.

What would you have been had you not been a politician?

I would have remained a professor. I was into academics and loved reading. Even now, I love to read good fiction or non-fiction books in my leisure time.

Subsidy plan for toilets

A London-based international NGO WaterAid, after a study last year, estimated that Bihar needs to build 85 million toilets to make state free of the menace of open defecation. What is being done on that front?

I am not sure about the figures that the organisation has reached at but I confess that we lag far behind on the national index of sanitation. We will now give direct subsidy to people to encourage them to build toilets in their homes. That is the best way to go about the schemes now. As per the central government's schemes, each BPL family is given Rs 3,500 for constructing toilet. The state government adds Rs 300 more to that
amount per beneficiary. We are now thinking of including above poverty line populace in the list of beneficiaries. It will ensure that society as a whole gets benefited.