Chief Minister Nitish Kumar held a high-level review meeting on plan expenditures of all the departments and reviewed the expenditure on plan heads.

It was found during the review meeting that against the allotment on plan heads, there was plan expenditure to the tune of Rs 12,083.82 crore by end of December last.

After holding discussions on the plan size, the Chief Minister said the plan size would be raised to Rs 28,000 crore.

Giving the information, Principal Secretary Planning and Development Vijay Prakash said every department had been asked by the Chief Minister to prepare their annual action plan.

The Chief Minister also directed the heads of departments to ensure that the allotted funds must be utilised within the stipulated period during 2011-12.

The meeting also decided that a workshop be held for increasing the utiity of Computerised Treasury Management Information system, he said.

Kumar said the state Rural Development department must also ensure construction of buildings of blocks in a phased manner by formulating an action plan, he said.

Besides Kumar, Chief Secretary Navin Kumar, Development Commissioner AK Sinha, secretaries of various departments, including Energy Secretary also attended the meeting.

Courtesy: PTI 

She also castigated the NDA government in the state for its alleged faulty and discriminatory Bihar Slums Development Policy 2011 and accused the government of “overlooking” the displacement of the poor in urban areas. Patkar alleged that though she wanted to raise these issues during her meeting with the chief minister, she was denied an appointment on the plea that Kumar was preoccupied.

“I also wanted to raise the issues of exploitation, and atrocities taking place in Bihar during the meeting”, she said. She alleged that the state government was “soft-pedalling” the issues like breach of embankment of Kosi river in 1998 causing unprecedented floods and Forbesganj police firing.

Patekar demanded that the state government take steps to speed up the inquiry into the twin issues. The social activist was addressing a crowd near Hartali Chowk after the delegation was stopped from meeting the chief minister.

Courtesy: PTI 

The state government has named its insurance scheme as the Bihar Shatabdi Asangathit Karyakshetra Kamgar Evam Shilpkar Surakasha Yojana (Bihar Centenary Unorganized Sector Workers and Craftsmen Security Scheme), because it is celebrating the state’s centenary year in March this year. The nomenclature follows CM Nitish Kumar’s recent announcement that names of all new schemes launched or new landmark buildings constructed or inaugurated this year would bear the prefix “Bihar Shatabdi (Bihar Centenary)”

Under this scheme, the state government would give insurance cover of Rs 1 lakh for accidental death, Rs 75,000 for absolute disability, Rs 37,500 for permanent temporary disability, and Rs 30,000 for death in harness. The annual liability on the state government on account of clearance of all kinds of claims would be around Rs 2 crore.

The state cabinet is “about to give its nod soon”, an official said. Interestingly, the scheme had earlier been placed before the state cabinet for its approval, but was returned to the labour resources department to get clearance from the Yojana Pradhikrit Samiti (empowered committee for schemes), said a source on condition of anonymity. “Once it is cleared by the empowered committee, the proposal related to the new scheme would be placed before the cabinet for its approval,” he added.

The UPA-I had introduced the Aam Admi Bima Yojana, in which the state government and the Centre were to share the premium payment of Rs 200 at Rs 100 each for the beneficiary, while the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) had to clear the claims of the beneficiaries.

Courtesy: TNN

According to details of movable and immovable assets declared by ministers for the year ended December 31, 2011, other ministers whose spouses have earned more movable assets are Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh, Building Construction Minister Damodar Raut, Rural Development Minister Nitish Mishra and Water Resource Minister Vijay Kumar  Chowdhary.

Narendra Singh has movable assets worth Rs 25.50 lakh while his wife Sagarmani Devi possess more property than Singh. She has movable assets worth Rs 27.42 lakh.

Similarly, health minister Choubey’s movable and immovable properties were less than his wife. Choubey has movable and immovable assets worth Rs 61.24 lakh while his wife Nita Choubey owns property worth Rs 94.99 lakh, over Rs 30 lakh more than her husband.

Deputy Chief Minister Modi, who also holds the charge of finance department , has movable assets worth Rs 25.78 lakh, while his wife J S Modi is owner of movable assets worth Rs 29.84 lakh.

State water resource minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary, a close aide of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, has movable properties worth Rs 15 lakh while his wife owns movable assets worth Rs 20.28 lakh.

The property details of the ministers and their family members were posted on the Bihar government website before the Assembly election conducted last October-November as per the directive of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

If the land, house and plots are added together, Choudhary is ahead of his wife in the accumulation of assets.

The figures further revealed that Tourism Minister Sunil Kumar Pintu’s wife has assets more than him which is worth Rs 40.45 lakh while Pintu has declared immovable assets worth Rs 20.09 lakh.

However, there is no uniformity in making public the assets earned by the NDA ministers in Bihar.

There are several ministers who have failed to give details of their movable assets like land and buildings on the ground that their family is not separated.

Minority Welfare minister Shahid Ali Khan has not disclosed the value of his immovable property on the ground that no separation has taken place in his family.

Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh had also not furnished the details of the joint properties of his family.

The three women  ministers in the Nitish Kumar  cabinet Parveen Amanullah (social welfare), Ranu Kumari (industry) and Sukhda Pandey (art and culture) have shown property more than their husbands.

Pandey has movable properties worth Rs 20.55 lakh as against her husband’s immovable assets worth Rs 46.23 lakh.

Sahi and his wife have immovable property worth Rs 6.42 crore.

Land reforms and revenue minister Ramai Ram is owner of assets worth Rs 1.25 crore while Sushil Kumar Modi has property worth Rs 1.6 crore.

Courtesy: PTI

In a letter to Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, the Chairperson of National Commission for Minorities Wajahat Habibullah has objected to the response of Bihar’s Minority Affairs Minister Shahid Ali Khan on an earlier missive of the NCM about the incident.

The NCM chief said that Khan’s letter gives an impression that the state government is using the instituting of the judicial commission as an “excuse to cover complete inaction” on the recommendations made by the Commission.

The controversy started after Khurshid’s ministry sent a letter written by Habibullah to the Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in September last year days after the NCM probed the incident and submitted a report on it.

In the letter, Habibullah had noted that the confidence of minorities in the state was shaken after the incident and made a number of recommendations to compensate the victims and instill confidence among the community.

In a strongly-worded reply to that letter on November 28 last year, Khan told Khurshid that the Centre’s notion was “grossly misplaced”.

He also used the occasion to draw the Union Minister’s attention to the incident of communal violence in Congress-ruled Rajasthan.

“Minorities in Bihar, especially the Muslims are also deeply distressed by the incident that took place in Gopalgarh, Rajasthan about two months ago,” he said asking the minister to convey the state’s concern over the “appalling incident” to Habibullah.

Habibullah has in his reply attached a letter written by Syed Shahabuddin, whose daughter Parveen Amanullah is a minister in Nitish Kumar government. “This incident will leave a long term impact on the community not only in Bihar but all over country,” Shahabuddin had said in the letter.

Habibullah said that Shahabuddin, who is also the President of All India Majlis-e-Mushaarat, is in no way connected with the NCM and “he is in fact father of Shahid Ali Khan’s colleague in the Bihar Council of Ministers.

Khan had earlier written “there is nothing in the event, which would be even remotely interpreted to give the impression that minorities were treated in an unfair manner in the situation that led to the incident.”

Habibuallah also rejected Khan’s contention that the state government will have to wait for the report of the inquiry commission before taking a final view on compensation and said Khan’s letter “studiously avoids any reference” to NCM’s recommendations for expediting and streamlining development work in the district.

On Khan asking Khurshid to convey Bihar’s concern about communal violence in Rajasthan to him, Habibullah said, “The government of Rajasthan has not made the judicial and the CBI inquiry an excuse for inaction but has proceeded to take action under the law, wherever merited.”

Habibullah described Khan’s letter as an “ill-advised response”.

In the letter, he has also reminded the Bihar government that the recommendations of NCM have already been taken care to avoid comments on any issue.

NCM has also written to the Bihar Chief Secretary on January 10 seeking urgent action on NCM’s recommendations.

Soon after the police firing incident in June last year, Habibullah and NCM member Syeda Bilgrami Imam had visited Forbesganj and latter submitted a report, which had recommended that the victims be given compensation as per the suggestions laid down in the proposed Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence Bill.

Courtesy: PTI

Only in July last a report on elementary education, released by none else but Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen at an official function in Patna, claimed that Bihar recorded 98.1 per cent enrollment in the age group of 8-14. It was said that within two decades illiteracy would be wiped out from the state. The media and NGOs went gaga over this outstanding feat though many of those working at the grassroots level questioned the veracity of the data and warned of impending scam. Yet experts from different states made a beeline to study the educational turnaround of the state.

But suddenly in the second week of this January chief minister Nitish Kumar ordered a probe into a unique type of scandal. If the officials are to be believed they, while making a survey, discovered lakhs of fake admission of children in schools as they wanted to take advantage of the government sponsored schemes––several of them centrally-funded––such as distribution of bicycles, uniforms, scholarship, mid-day meal etc from different places. Initial official figure of just 11 out of 38 districts of the state suggests that half a million children have been wrongly enrolled just to get cash benefit for buying bicycles and uniforms as well as scholarship. The figure of fake school-children may run into millions after complete and final survey of all the districts of the state comes. That as high as 70,000 fake enrollments have been found in a small ruralized district of Banka––which has a population of just 1.7 million––tells the sordid side of the story.

Children having the same name have been enrolled in different schools at the same time to get the government benefits. In many cases they jumped a class or two to get admitted in Class-IX in another school as bicycles are meant only for students of this class while uniforms and scholarship for all the other classes.

When two years back a girl topped the Class-X state board examination it was trumpeted that this was possible because she got money to purchase bicycle on which she used to go to school.

But the unearthing of scam of such an enormous proportion, not by media or any private agency, but by the government itself, has exposed the tall claim of 98.1 per cent enrollment. The number of genuine students in school may now come down sharply. This change in figure is likely to have its ramifications.

The tragedy is that it is not only the government officials, school headmasters and parents who are neck deep in the corruption even the young children are aware that they are party in this loot business. Only a few months back a large number of girls of a government school of Patna thronged the chief minister’s Janata Darbar to complain that they have not got cash amount for uniforms and bicycles. The media gave widespread coverage with photos of how the chief minister ordered the immediate fulfillment of their demands. Now nobody can say for sure that all these girls were genuine. May be the school authorities were right in withholding the amount.

Now the state government has decided to lodge an FIR against all the beneficiaries and take punitive action against the officials and headmasters. But it is a gargantuan task and involves expenditure of huge amount of money.

Provided the government succeeds in getting all those involved punished and parents return the money procured in illegal manner what will happen to millions of children who got ‘enrolled’ into the den of corruption. Who will compensate for the loss of their innocence?

Courtesy: TCN

After the facelift, the auditorium will have better air conditioning, comfortable chairs, beautiful air curtains, state-of-the-art sound and electrical systems. It will be reopened for public booking from next Wednesday.

“I have directed the authorities concerned to complete the renovation and beautification work by January 31,” divisional commissioner K P Ramaiah, who also chairs the S K M Hall Development Committee (SKMHDC), said. “Work has been intensified after CM Nitish Kumar’s directives,” said a senior official.

Various departments – building construction, Pesu and PHED – have been entrusted with the task of structural facelift, restoration of electrical equipment and sanitation and sewage system overhaul, respectively. “Renovation is likely to cost an estimated Rs2 crore,” said a public relation officer (Patna division), K K Upadhyay.

The hall’s centralized air conditioning system will now have three compressors of 90 tons each to keep the hall cool. The entire building is being whitewashed, and the broken steps and patches where plaster had come off are being repaired, said Upadhyay. Couches in the hall’s green room are being replaced with modern ones and the room is being fitted with split AC and air curtains. The well of the hall will also get VIP chairs, while damaged chairs in the main hall are also being replaced. The PHED department is busy constructing potable water points at strategic locations in the hall. A water cooler is also being put in place. Toilets and washrooms are under restoration as well.

A senior officer said the hall’s existing booking charge may be revised after renovation. At present, for private functions on weekdays, the charge is Rs60,150, while on weekends it is Rs66,165 (both inclusive of taxes). For government agencies, however, the charge is only Rs38,496 (inclusive of all taxes).

Courtesy: TNN

What has irked the commission the most was that Bihar Minority Affairs Minister Shahid Ali Khan, while responding to a letter sent by NCM Chairperson Wajahat Habibullah to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, has made a mention of the recent police firing in Gopalgarh in Congress-ruled Rajasthan in which 10 Muslims were killed. A letter written by Khan to Union Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid makes an interesting reading.

In a tongue in cheek fashion, Ali said Bihar does appreciate the NCM chief’s concern, “but, at the same time, I would like to bring to your notice that minorities in Bihar, especially the Muslims, are also deeply distressed by the incident that took place in Gopalgarh, Rajasthan…. Please convey our concern over this appalling incident to Wajahat Habibullah….”

The NCM chief is not amused at the mention of Gopalgarh firing which he feels was an unnecessary attempt to give such incidents a political colour.

He is set to sent a strongly-worded reply soon.

Soon after the police firing incident in June last year, Habibullah and NCM member Syeda Bilgrami Imam visited Forbesganj, a Muslim-concentrated village. The NCM chairperson later followed up with a letter to the Chief Minister.

Now, in a response, Khan has made it clear that the state government would wait for the findings of the judicial inquiry regarding payment of compensation and action against the police personnel.

The state government has already paid Rs 3 lakh to the parents of an infant killed in the firing. “…It would be appropriate for the state government to take a view on the police firing only after the commission’s report has been received so that no prejudice is caused to the process of inquiry,” Ali wrote.

Ali rejected the NCM chief’s observation that the incident has “shaken the confidence” of minorities, saying the notion was misplaced as there is “nothing in the event which would be even remotely interpreted to give the impression that minorities were treated in an unfair manner”.

He said the genesis of the incident lies in the right to passage through an industrial estate and it cannot be said the “turn of events” would have been different if the village was majority dominated.

Courtesy: Indian Express

Rabishankar Kumar Kinha, under secretary to the government, described it as a routine exercise. He said the state government was pleased to direct that all district magistrates of Bihar shall exercise the powers conferred by sub-section (2) of the said section within the local limits of their jurisdication for a period of three month from january 1, 2012 to March 31, 2012.

Courtesy: PTI 

“The problems of farmers and labourers has increased tremendously under the rule of NDA in Bihar,” CPI(M) politburo member SR Pillai and central secretariat member Hannan Molla told reporters.

They alleged that the Nitish Kumar government was an abject failure on completing the promises made by it.

“All the promises have been proved to be empty,” they said.

The CPI(M) leaders said the parties 20th state conference would be organised in Motihari between January 29 and 31 to explore the possibility of uniting Left and democratic forces in Bihar.

Courtesy: PTI