Nitish Kumar and P Chidambaram

Patna, Oct. 8: Nitish Kumar has given Union finance minister P. Chidambaram six weeks to “tailor make” the Raghuram Rajan Committee report to suit his specific demand — that of special status to Bihar.

The demand has been made in a letter the Bihar chief minister wrote to Chidambaram on October 3. The letter was released to the press today.

The letter is a follow-up to the Rajan committee report that has kept Bihar on the list of “least developed states”.

Nitish has asked the finance minister to increase the budgetary support to the Planning Commission for meeting the financial requirements of the “least developed states” and evolve a fiscal regime of tax breaks and concessions to attract private investments.

“You may kindly allocate gross budgetary support to the Planning Commission for accommodating the financial requirements,” the letter said. “The department of revenue should evolve a fiscal regime of tax breaks and concessions for incentivising private investment in the least developed states on the line of treatment currently given to the special category states.”

Nitish has drawn flak for praising the report, which has ruled out granting special category status to states — an issue that Nitish has been campaigning for relentlessly. In the missive, Nitish has virtually stuck to his old stand that he would not settle on anything less than special category status to Bihar. He has set a deadline for six weeks for the finance minister to “tailor make” the Rajan panel’s report to his specific demand. “We anxiously look forward to the implementation of the aforesaid within the next six weeks. Your personal intervention in this regard is solicited,” says the letter.