By Sanjay K Jha, JDU
This is a rebuttal to an short article written by Atul K Thakur, policy qualified and analyst. Read the original short article right here.
Sanjay K Jha believes that the mentioned short article does not do justice to the work completed by Nitish Kumar as Chief Minister for 15 years. He adds that Bihar Government is committed towards social empowerment and improvement with a sharp concentrate on skilling for youth, females empowerment, self-adequate rural economy, urban improvement, infrastructure up-gradation and well being for all. Here’s Sanjay K Jha’s take:
One of the initially onerous tasks of Nitish Kumar was to place back law and order in shape, and he did it deftly. Secondly, he went about making certain that the livelihoods of the majority of Biharis, who rely on agriculture, was not impacted. The state’s record on agriculture speaks for itself. In the final 5 years itself, for instance, Bihar’s agriculture development price has been at 7% against the national development price of 2%. Thirdly, the general development prices of Bihar also have surpassed that of national typical. Against India’s typical development price of 7.5% involving 2011-12 to 2018019, Bihar’s price has been at 13.3%. The figure was 8.3% and 11.7% for the period involving 2004-05 and 2011-12.
Fourth, Bihar’s literacy price amongst girl youngster has regularly noticed improvement – it has grown to 61.1% now from 56.9% in 2015-16, as per 5th National Family Health Survey 2019-20. Bihar has provided a new template of females empowerment to the nation. Bihar was the initially state to declare 50 per cent reservation for females in panchayats and urban nearby bodies in 2006-07. We have addressed gender inequality regularly and numerous of our flagship schemes such as the Arakshit Rozgar Mahilaon ka Adhikar (employment for females), Mukhyamantri Kanya Utthan Yojana (for the girl youngster) and Mukhyamantri Balika Cycle Yojana (to lessen the gender gap in education) bear testimony to this. Bihar has also noticed a considerable rise in the quantity of females owning a bank savings account – from 26.4% in 2015-16 to 76.7% in 2019-20.
Fifth, Bihar has completed extremely nicely on the infrastructure front. This is borne out of the truth that out of the 41 key road bridges in the state, 25 have been constructed for the duration of 15 years of Nitish Kumar as Chief Minister, even though 16 have been constructed in 48 years, involving 1947 and 2005. Similarly, similarly serviceable lengths of all crucial road networks in the state have grown considerably from 19940.23 kms to 38932.44 kms as evidenced in the following segregated figures: From 2005 to 2019, the total national highway length in the state almost doubled from 7583 kms to 13172.52 kms that of state highway pretty much tripled from 2803.74 kms to 7475.05 kms even though total length of district roads (MDR)doubled from 9553.49 kms to 18284.87 kms.
It is equally noteworthy that involving 2005 and 2020, 96,500 kms of rural roads have been constructed in the state connecting almost each and every habitation. It is nicely recognized how we have made a network of roads and bridges across the state, enabling superior access and mobility for people today, a crucial ingredient of improvement. Between 2005 and 2020, the planned price range expenditure of the state’s Road Construction Department has been a whopping Rs 54,461 crore.
Sixth, there has been considerable progress on the human improvement front. Between 2011-12 and 2018-19, the level of Per Capita Development Expenditure (PCDE) in Bihar has grown at 14.2%, compared to the national typical of 13.3%. The expenditure on education in the state elevated at an annual price of 13.8%, which is larger than that of the all-India typical of 12.8%. The expenditure on well being also registered an annual development price of 20.8%, and was larger than that of the all-India typical. To provide a increase to youngster welfare-associated functions, Bihar has began the ‘child budgeting’ as nicely as recorded a reduce in total college dropouts from 2.17 lakh in 2016-17 to 1.44 lakh in 2018-19. Significantly, the percentage of elementary schools with drinking water facilities in Bihar elevated from 93% in 2011-2012 to 99% in 2016-2017
Seventh, we have created fast strides in agro-industries and other sectors, addressing employment and livelihoods. For instance, an enabling policy atmosphere has led to egg production increasing in the state from 111.17 crore in 2016-17 to 176.34 crore in 2018-19 and the total fish production has gone up from 4.79 lakh tones in 2013-14 to 6.02 lakh tonnes in 2018-19. Similarly, the annual development price of operational agro-based factories in Bihar was 16.4% more than the final 10 years, compared to only 3.3 % at the all India level. In tandem, Bihar has provided record productivity in key crops –rice, wheat and maize and as a befitting corollary to these indicators of progress, the state was bestowed with the Krishi Karman award for rice production in 2012, for wheat production in 2013 and for maize production in 2016.
The per capita consumption of the electrical energy in the state has risen from 145 kwh in 2012-13 to 311 kwh in 2018-19, implying development of 114% in six years and the availability of energy has elevated from an typical of 6-8 hours to 20-22 hours in rural locations and from 10-12 hours to 22-24 hours in urban locations. All this is enabling superior requirements of living, superior access and avenues for education and enterprises.
The state’s thrust on giving a focused impetus for industrial development is reflected in the current amendment to the Bihar Industrial Investment Promotion Policy 2016 which has expanded the scopes of Bihar’ crucial priority sectors, namely Food Processing, Small Machine manufacturing, IT, ITeS, Electrical and Electronics Hardware manufacturing, Wood-based Industries and General Manufacturing sectors, in addition to the introduction of new schemes such as the District Industrial Innovation scheme and Skill Mapping by District Counseling Centers.
It is pertinent to note that a great deal of the above is component of giving enabling infrastructure assistance for the workforce returning to Bihar post lockdown. For instance, below the District Industrial Innovation Scheme, a Start-Up Zone has been set up in West Champaran district exactly where merchandise created by artisan-artists, who have returned from Delhi, Punjab, Gujarat and even foreign nations like Qatar, are on show. Several such manufacturing centers are getting set up in districts across the state.
Special land pool of about 450 acres has been earmarked for preferential allotment to industries proposing to set up units in Bihar. I am as a great deal pleased to inform that a specific cell is getting set up in Chief Minister’s workplace for facilitation of worldwide investors and Bihari Diaspora, who have displayed lot of interest in the ‘New Bihar’ of Nitish Kumar.
Eighth, in the August of 2020, Bihar became the initially state in the nation to have brought collectively and effectively collectivized more than 1.22 crore females in 10.18 lakh self enable groups (SHGs) via the length and breadth of the state. The groups have effectively transacted 13,871 crore of credit below the Jeevika umbrella, a World Bank-supported poverty alleviation plan operational in the state considering the fact that 2007 to empower females and make them self-reliant. Jeevika benefited 45.5 lakh households via its several activities for the duration of the Corona pandemic, a exceptional achievement for Bihar in the field of women’s empowerment, which got ignored in your short article.
Ninth, and a blatantly ignored achievement of the state in your short article, relates to the visionary climate adjust initiative –Jal Jeevan Hariyali Abhiyan – undertaken by Bihar at the behest of Hon chief minister. You would note that not only is this initiative a novelty in India, but it has also won gleaming accolades from worldwide leaders and the United Nations for its path-setting appeal as a complete ecological plan and its prospective to address the carbon footprint problem. At UN’s High-Level Climate Change Roundtable on 24 Sept 2020, Shri Nitish Kumar was the sole dignitary invited from India and he utilised the occasion to share highlights of Bihar’s environmental initiative with the august worldwide audience. This is possibly also distinctive in that we sought to get the vision and idea of the initiative ratified by a specific joint session of the state legislature in July final.
Tenth, the Bihar government did commendable work for the duration of the pandemic, with measures like transferring economic help straight to the accounts of twenty-one lakh of stranded migrant workers via the Bihar Sahayata Mobile App. This led to the state winning the pandemic category of Digital India Awards 2020. Also, in a initially for the nation, Bihar government carried out a enormous “skills survey” of migrant workers returning to the state for the duration of the nationwide lockdown for their talent profiling.This database of capabilities of Bihar’s migrant population would enable several departments in developing capabilities-based employment possibilities to boost their financial circumstances.
Eleventh, other relief measures integrated sending direct help to the bank account of 1.64 crores ration card holders, 2.1 million households stranded outdoors, and 1.6 million households in Bihar for the duration of the lockdown as component of help to diverse categories of people today. Additionally, 3 months’ pension was provided in advance to the elderly on the guidelines of the Hon Chief Minister, which benefited 1.8 million elderly people today. Similarly, we ensured timely disbursement against uniform, meal, books and associated help schemes via DBT to all bank accounts related with college students of the state.
(Sanjay K Jha is the National General Secretary of JDU and MLC, Bihar. The views expressed are the author’s personal.)