Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar shakes hands with Nepal President Ram Baran Yadav during their meeting in New Delhi on Thursday. Picture by Ramakant Kushwaha

Patna, Feb. 3: The Planning Commission and the state government will sit together on February 15 to finalise the plan size of Bihar for the financial year 2011-12.

“The Planning Commission has some confusion over the internal resources of Bihar and they had sent a letter suggesting that we cut down on our plan size. I do not agree with the assessment. Our officials will hold meetings with the Planning Commission to dispel doubts about internal resources of the state,” said chief minister Nitish Kumar, after returning from his maiden visit to Delhi after his stunning victory in the Bihar Assembly polls. He asserted that the plan size of Bihar should be hiked to Rs 24,000 crore.

Earlier in the day, Nitish met Nepal President Ram Baran Yadav in New Delhi and discussed strategies to contain the damages caused by frequent floods in the state.

“Flood affects both the countries, which shares border, and hence has to be tackled unitedly,” the Bihar chief minister told reporters after meeting Yadav. He said the Nepal President has assured to co-operate with India and work towards reducing risks of flooding and boost emergency responses in the event of a disaster.

Kumar was expected to meet Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday. However, he could not do so as Mukherjee went to meet the President of Afghanistan and allotted Nitish a time in the evening.

“It was not possible for me to stay longer in Delhi. I will meet the Union finance minister in my next meeting in Delhi,” Kumar said.

Kumar said during his meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, he apprised him of the situation faced in Bihar because of drought. “I told him that the groundwater levels in several districts were going down and there may be acute shortage of drinking water in the near future,” he said.

He said he had also stressed the need to speed up the formation of Nalanda International University.

“I also raised the issue of objections by the Centre on setting up Central University of Bihar in Motihari. Motihari is the karambhoomi of Mahatma Gandhi and the university should be there. Initially the Centre had no objections to the University being located in Motihari.I do not know why they started to object to it suddenly,” he said.

Talking about his meeting with Union home minister P. Chidambaram, Nitish said he had stressed the extension of security related expenditure districts in Bihar and removing the confusion about funds for the state in the Calamity Relief Fund.

Nitish said the Centre should take the burden of 90 per cent costs incurred in implementation of Right to Education Act. He said Bihar would require Rs 27,000 crore in the first year and a recurring cost of Rs 16,000 crore for the implementation of RTE Act.

Talking about the arrest of former Union minister A. Raja, Nitish said that it did not concern just one person.

“So many faces will be exposed in this case,” he said stressing that the 2G spectrum scam was just an indicator of a bigger ailment gripping the country due to corruption.

“The people of India are agitated over the issue and if the Centre does not act in time, it will have to face the consequences,” he added.