Patna, Aug. 15: Chief minister Nitish Kumar today iterated his demand for special category status to Bihar amid reports of Prime Minister Narendra Modi might announce a special package for the state during his visit on Tuesday.
Modi is scheduled to address his third public meeting in the past 30 days in Saharsa on Tuesday.
"Bihar will definitely develop. It will develop due to the hard work of its people. It will not develop due to anybody's blessings or mercy. Financial package in bits and pieces are not a panacea. If it (Centre) wants to really help the state, it should accord special category status to the state, which would go a long way in enabling the state in prospering on its own strength," Nitish said addressing a public meeting after unfurling the Tricolour at Gandhi Maidan here on the occasion of the 69th Independence Day.
"We don't demand money. Give us special status and keep the rest with you. Special status to Bihar will provide tax concessions to entrepreneurs and lead to investment, establishment of factories and employment opportunities for lakhs of youths, who are otherwise forced to go to other states for jobs," Nitish argued.
In the last Independence Day speech of his third term as the chief minister, with the state going to polls later this year, Nitish said he envisaged a state where people are not forced to go to other states to work and asserted that he wanted so much employment opportunities in Bihar that people from outside come to work here.
Nitish added that the state was on the fast track of development ever since he got the opportunity to serve it in 2005. "The state has consistently recorded the growth rate of 10.2 per cent in the past 10 years. When we came to power the size of the state budget was barely over Rs 4,000 crore. Now it is Rs 1.20 lakh crore. The people below the poverty line have come down to 33 per cent from 55 per cent. The sharp fall in the number of people below poverty line indicates the people's participation in the process of development," he said.
He reminded that he had announced from the same Gandhi Maidan on the occasion of Independence Day in 2012 that he would not go to seek votes if he failed to improve the power situation. "Bihar is one of the states which still has negligible production of power. But thanks to the government's arrangement, the urban areas of the state were getting 22 to 24 hours of regular power supply against 14 hours in the rural areas. The per capita power consumption has gone up to 203 units against barely 70 units in 2005. The state's power body has been supplying over 3,100MW of power against 700MW 10 years ago. As many as 14,065 villages have been electrified. The rest will be electrified too soon."
Nitish added that the state had registered remarkable progress on all the indexes of human development. "Thanks to our uniform and cycle scheme, the dropout rate in the state's school has been reduced to a little over 1 per cent from 12 per cent earlier. The number of girl children in Class IX alone across the state's schools has gone up to 8.15 lakh - almost equal to the number of boys in the class - against 1.70 lakh 10 years ago," he said.
Altogether, 21,000 new primary schools have been opened during this period, 19,585 middle schools upgraded to high schools and a large number of teachers appointed in them, he said.
He said his government had gone a long way in building infrastructure in the state. "We had set the target that we can cover the longest distance in the state by road within six hours. Now we are working on to improve the roads in such a manner that we could cover this distance within five hours," he said.
Nitish added that his government had carried out several schemes for the welfare of women, Dalits and other underprivileged sections.
