Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday passed a resolution in the Cabinet seeking grant of special category status to Bihar. After the Cabinet meeting, Mr. Kumar posted a long message on his official X handle, stressing that once again he was demanding special status to Bihar.
“Today in the Cabinet meeting, a proposal has been passed to request the Central government to give special category status to Bihar. I request, keeping in mind the interest of the people of Bihar, the Central government should immediately give special State status to Bihar, “Mr. Kumar said in the letter.
Mr. Kumar pointed out that to implement the schemes prepared by the State government in the interest of the people an amount of approximately ₹2.50 lakh crorewould be needed.
“Since a huge amount of money is required for these works, a target has been set to complete them in five years. If Bihar gets the status of a special State by the Central government, then we will complete this work in a very short time,” Mr. Kumar said.
The Bihar Chief Minister further added that he had been making such a demand since 2010 and even a rally was held on 24 November 2012 at Gandhi Maidan in Patna and on 17 March 2013 at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi.
He indirectly slammed the then Congress government of Manmohan Singh for not doing anything on the demand.
“On our demand, the then Central government had also formed the Raghuram Rajan Committee and its report was published in September 2013, but even at that time the then Central government did not do anything about it. In May 2017 also, we had written a letter to the Central government for granting the status of special State,” Mr. Kumar said.
Caste-based survey
He explained how a caste-based survey was conducted in the State and based on it how the reservation was increased in Bihar.
“For the first time in the country, a caste-based survey has been done in Bihar. On the basis of social, economic and educational status data of caste-based survey, the reservation limit has been increased to 65% . Ten percent reservation for economically weaker people of general category will remain applicable. With this, the total reservation limit for all these categories has been increased to 75%,”Mr. Kumar said.
Also Read | The impact of the Bihar caste survey | Explained
Acknowledging the data of the survey, he stressed that about 94 lakh poor families had been found in Bihar, including all the categories, and an amount of up to ₹2 lakh will be provided in installments for employment to one member of each of those families.
“The limit of ₹60,000 being given to 63,850 houseless and landless families for purchasing land has been increased to ₹1 lakh. Besides, these families will be given ₹1,20,000 to build houses. The 39 lakh families who are living in huts will also be provided permanent houses, for which an amount of ₹1,20,000 per family will be provided. Under the Sustainable Livelihood Scheme, now ₹2 lakh will be given instead of ₹1 lakh to help extremely poor families,” Mr. Kumar said.
