UPA woos Nitish Kumar with Rs. 34000 cr for Bihar

Central government praising an opposition alliance chief minister for good governance and opening all doors to address his grievances, is a rarity. But this is what Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar’s was greeted with in Delhi.

Updated on: May 16, 2013, 01:19:46 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

Central government praising an opposition alliance chief minister for good governance and opening all doors to address his grievances, is a rarity. But this is what Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar’s was greeted with in Delhi.

The Planning Commission readily agreed to his demand for annual plan of Rs. 34,000 crore while, rural development minister Jairam Ramesh assured quick sanction of the rural road projects for Bihar.

Finance minister P Chidambaram announced setting up of a committee to draw new definition of backwardness that could ensure more Central money for the state.

“The state (Bihar) has done well in economic growth despite its backwardness,” plan panel deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia said in presence of Kumar after the annual plan meeting.

“The state has done a commendable job in human development”.

Highlights of Annual Plan

Rs. 34,000 crore approved for 2013-14

Rs. 12,000 crore as special Bihar plan for 12th five year plan period

Allocation for social and agriculture sectors increased

Plan to connect all small towns with all weather roads

Compliments for starting Mission Manav Vikas for achieving 20 social development targets

Bihar to target 13% growth in 12th five year plan

Kumar echoed the new found bonhomie thanking the panel for 21.4% hike announced in Bihar’s budget in March even before the plan expenditure for the country was approved by the Parliament only in May.

“I am thankful to the deputy chairperson (Ahulwalia) for helping us to keep our promise,” Kumar told reporters.

The panel agreed despite only 6% increase in the country’s plan budget for 2013-14.

Kumar's demand for special category status for Bihar got some fillip with finance ministry announcing a committee under the ministry’s chief economic advisor Raghuram Rajan to redefine the criteria for identifying backward regions in the country.

“The Expert Committee to consider backwardness of the States in terms of measures like distance of the State from the national average under criteria such as per capita income and other human development indicators and for evolving a Composite Development Index of States," a finance ministry statement said on the six member committee.

The committee will submit its report in two months. The present criteria for determining backwardness fixed in mid 1980s are based on terrain, density of population and length of international borders.

After a two-hour long meeting in Yojana Bhawan, Ahluwalia and planning minister Rajiv Shukla accompanied Kumar and his Cabinet colleagues to their car, a friendly gesture not offered to all chief ministers.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

Tell us what your First Vote will stand for in a short video & get a chance to be featured on HT’s social media handles. Click here to know more!

Stay updated Bihar Lok Sabha Result and with all the Breaking News and Latest News from Bengaluru. Click here for comprehensive coverage of top cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and more across India . Stay informed on the latest happenings in World News.