Patna, Oct. 21: Granting of special status to Bihar, hiking the special annual grant amount given to Bihar under Sam Vikas Yojana from the existing Rs 1,000 crore to Rs 4,000 crore and special fund for constructing over 60,000km of rural roads are some of the important points chief minister Nitish Kumar is going to put forward in the National Development Council (NDC) meeting scheduled to take place at Delhi on October 22.

To be accompanied by his deputy Sushil Kumar Modi, planning and development department minister Narendra Narayan Yadav and senior officials, including chief secretary Navin Kumar among others, the chief minister, who left for Delhi this afternoon, would raise the special status demand the first time after the memorandum was submitted to the Centre in July this year, which was signed by over one crore Bihar residents.

Followed by the submission, the Centre had set up an inter-ministerial panel under the supervision of the Planning Commission to study the feasibility of Bihar’s demand. Planning Commission member secretary Sudha Pillai presides over the panel that is expected to submit its report by December. Secretary (expenditure), ministry of finance, Sumit Bose has been made the member-secretary of the inter-ministerial group.

The move to raise the issue on the NDC platform assumes significance, as it would witness participation of all chief ministers of the states, as well as the Prime Minister and members and office-bearers of Planning Commission. During his interaction with the media while returning from his recent visit to South Africa on Thursday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is reported to have said the Planning Commission was examining the request for granting special status to Bihar and only the NDC could take a decision on this.

Set up in 1952 as an adjutant to the Planning Commission, NDC was constituted to associate states in formulation of plans.