Bihar 's cabinet to meet in a village

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's cabinet members will drive down to Barbighee village under Balia block of Begusarai district on Tuesday, reports Vijay Swaroop.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's cabinet members will drive down to Barbighee village under Balia block of Begusarai district on Tuesday as Kumar wishes to hold a cabinet meeting in the rural setting.

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"This is for the first time in Indian Parliamentary history that a cabinet meeting is being organised in a village," said a senior cabinet minister.

Earlier, on two occasions the state cabinet met outside Patna, but that was in Ranchi, summer capital of undivided Bihar.

"Cabinet meetings can be convened at any place. There is no such provision that it cannot be held outside the state capital. But since the capital has a proper place assigned for the purpose, it is generally held here," said former irrigation minister Jagdanand Singh of the Rashtriya Janata Dal.

The cabinet members will be ferried to the village near Lakhmania station on a Volvo bus. They will be accompanied by principal secretaries and secretaries for the meeting scheduled to begin at 2.00 pm.

The meeting will be organised under a shamiana (a tent), and there will be only plastic chairs for the ministers. The principal secretary in the cabinet co-ordination department, Girish Shankar, said the entourage would return the same day.

The lunch will also be a desi affair in keeping with the settings. And the bigwigs will have to sit on the ground to be served.