Nitish Kumar has improved Bihar but the enthusiasm he displayed in the first term is on the wane.

By Manoj Kumar

"What will be your first priority?" asked a scribe to Nitish Kumar soon after he had taken oath as the new chief minister of Bihar on 24 November 2005, ending the 15-year misrule of the Rashtriya Janata Dal.

"Governance."

"Your second priority?"

"Governance."

"Your third priority?"

"Governance."

Well, Nitish worked sincerely and wholeheartedly to extricate Bihar from the gargantuan mess created by the RJD rule and tried hard to bring the state back on the development track. The effort eventually earned him the sobriquet -- 'turnaround man'.

He restored the law and order situation in the state by starting speedy trial against criminals which resulted in conviction of as many as 50,000 criminals. Many of them were mighty politicians like Mohammad Shahabuddin, referred to as 'Sahahau AK-47' during the RJD regime, and Anand Mohan. He built more than 15,000 km of roads and made the system function by improving work culture in government offices during the first five year term in office.

Such was the impact of the smooth roads that Bihar, which was once a market of auto-parts given the bumpy, pot-holed roads dotting the state, turned into a huge market of vehicles. This is underlined by the fact that vehicle sales recorded an unbelievable 400 percent increase from a mere 80,363 vehicles in 2005-06 to 386,000 vehicles in 2010-11.

With the communication showing a tremendous improvement, a number of big industrialists showed interest in Bihar and travelled to the capital city looking for business opportunities in the changed atmosphere. They included Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries, Ratan Tata of Tata Group, Anand Mahindra of Mahindra & Mahindra and Sunil Bharti Mittal of Bharti Group. Apart from them, state government also organised two global meets in Patna requesting the industry captains to invest in Bihar.

If that was not enough, Bihar chief minister himself travelled to countries like Mauritius, Bhutan and China to hard-sell the changing Bihar.

Seven years later, Bihar now appears to be mixed bag of success and failures. Nitish Kumar’s enthusiasm seems to be waning now.

Despite wasting crores on holding global summits and rolling out red carpets for industrialists, no big-ticket investment has come to Bihar till date. It's primarily the biscuit, cycle or leather factories that have come up in Bihar. Migration of people to big cities from the state continues with little employment opportunities available.

"The focus of the government has changed from industry to agriculture as it feels we are fewer in numbers, not enough to bring them to power as compared to huge chunk of people engaged in agriculture activities," said Bihar Industry Association president KPS Kesari.

Industrialists say poor availability of power here too is forcing them to think twice before coming to Bihar. At the Global Summit held in February this year, a number of industrialists such as Aditya Birla Group chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla expressed concern over lack of power in the state saying, "Heavy industry captains cannot come forward for investment here without proper electricity supply."

Statistics further say that state’s economy grew by a robust 11 percent annually in the last six years of the NDA regime. However, government's sense of achievement was nullified by the increasing number of BPL families. As per the state's own figures, there are a total of 14 million BPL families in the state which comes to roughly 70 million people out of state’s total population of nearly 100 million if an average five member is counted in each family.

A survey conducted by the IIT, Delhi last year too says that nearly 70 percent of rural households in Bihar have been going to bed without food every day. The survey was coordinated by Prof Jean Dreze, a development economist who conceptualised and drafted the first version of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.

"Despite encouraging growth rate, there has been no decline in poverty in Bihar," declared the Planning Commission member Abhijit Sen at the global meet. "This is basically a catch-up growth which is still very low."

The state opposition also alleges that while on the one hand the chief minister has been constantly seeking special category status from the Centre, he himself has gone on wasting billions in the name of undertaking various yatras at the government's cost. In the past three years, the chief minister has undertaken as many as five such yatras across the state.

Corruption is yet another area of major concern. Despite the state government enacting a number of stringent laws to check graft, such as Bihar Special Court Act which permits the government to confiscate the ill-acquired assets of corrupt officials and open up schools there, corruption cases have been growing under the present regime.

"The law has turned into a big farce as the government is acting on pick and choose basis," alleged Leader of Opposition in Bihar assembly and senior RJD leader Abdul Bari Siddiqui. Such response is expected from political rivals but the general impression gaining ground is Nitish Kumar could do much better.

The law and order situation remains better compared to that of the RJD regime but here too complacency is showing up. There is no let up in kidnapping cases even today. As per a report form police department, Bihar reported a total of 2,301 cases of kidnapping in 2006, followed by 2,092 in 2007, 2,735 in 2008, 3,142 in 2009, 3,602 in 2010 and 565 in first two months of 2011. The state police department has not updated its website since then.

"The kind of administration we had seen from Kumar in his first term is totally missing now…He looks more interested in becoming the prime minister than governing Bihar," summed up a Patna resident.