A top official told BiharTimes that after all the state can make spot purchase of power at higher rate to overcome the temporary crisis rather than indulge in the blame-game. Besides, the state government has failed to increase by a single MW the production of power in the last six years. Even the Kanti and Barauni thermal power plants have become almost non-functional. In fact water and power supplies have deteriorated in the last six years rather than showing any sign of improvement because their demand is increasing by the passing of each day.

He said that after all the transmission and distribution loss are more than 40 per cent in Bihar, which is highest in India, yet no effort has been made to reduce it. In such a situation how can the state government blame the Centre?

Whatever may be the version of some of the officials of the state government the Chief Minister blamed the Centre for stalling all power projects in Bihar. He put all the blame on the Centre for the delay in completion of NTPC power plants at Barh, which was inaugurated by the then Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, on March 4, 1999. Nitish used to represent Barh in parliament then.

Though the chief minister said the protests over power were natural. “But if burning my effigy can bring power, I am ready to provide straw for making the effigies,” he told Bihar Assembly on Monday.

But the chief minister failed to explain the acute water shortage in all the districts of the state which is not entirely related to the power crisis. After all thousands of hand-punps and tube-wells are lying out of order all over the state. In towns like Nawada the municipality has only two tankers to cater to the need of the people. People of Munger, Gaya and Patna have also taken to the streets to protest both power and water shortage.

What is strange is that even the Patna Municipal Corporation can not supply water to the residents living even less than a kilometers away from Ganga in the vicinity of Mahendru, though there are two big pumping machines, one near NIT and another near Mahendru Post Office. If there is no electricity, alternative arrangements, such as generators, can be used to supply water. But the story is that even when there is power supply thousands of houses never get water. Those who can afford have installed their own boring machines while the rest had to literally fight for water. Even Ganga has moved away, especially during the summer.

Left with no choice residents of Patna frequently take to the streets almost everyday these days. Such protests often end up with the burning of effigies of the chief minister or his cabinet colleagues. They are not at all prepared to listen to the plea that the Centre is responsible for the water and power crisis.

Comment

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I visited Bihar early this month after a period of 3year and I can see a major difference there. I can see very much improvement in road infrastructure, electricity and most important thing is that crime has been controlled very well. People can go to market late night without any fear. Bihar is progressing but its slow and It wrong that we compare Bihar with Gujarat at this stage. Bihar has taken so just one step towards the development and we can’t expect that it will be a developed like Gujarat which has a lot of industry base there and it has not happened there in overnight. Gujarat was hosting so many big business houses for a long time and the Gujarati community is also very much business oriented. They don’t have to look outside for the investment in their state. By culture Biharis don’t have much enthusiasm towards business and that’s the reason we have to look outside state for the investment. For getting investment from outside there has to a good platform in the state and I guess Nitish govt is deeply involved in making that platform.
We are facing major power crisis in state and for that not only Bihar or Center is responsible the people of Bihar shares the equal share as I can say in the most part of Bihar Aam janta is utilizing free electricity or they are just paying pennies for this. Most of the people have got a tempered meters installed. If people are not paying for this electricity how BSEB will be able to pay the bills of NTPC and other power supplier companies? Although I heard that BSEB has just started a drive to resolve the power theft issue and they are visiting ever house (at least in my home in my town Bihar Sharif, Nalanda) and they are putting fine from 20k to 1L if they find the tempered meter or any unauthorized electricity connection. Lets hope Bihar govt will be able to handle the power crisis soon but as people of Bihar we should also cooperate but paying full electricity bills.

Alok Kumar
Pune

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We Biharis can keep on blaming our chief ministers but the underdevelopement of bihar has a very different reason.during the last 150yrs , after the defeat of nawab mir qasim in the battle of buxer in 1764 and subsequent giving of all rights of bihar to british by auranghjeb's son shah alam, exploitation of bihar began.british exploited the natural resouces of south bihar and invested in beautifying calcutta.it was this british and bengali disdain of bihar that an independant state of bihar was demanded by dr rajendra prasad and barristor sachchidanand sinha.bihar was separated from bangal along with orissa.orissa later separated from bihar.after independance congress government continue it's dislike for bihar and bihar was put on back burner by the central government in delhi.
bihar has been taken for granted by the delhi darbar and in the mind of rest of india biharis do not deserve a better life.biharis are borned as slaves to indians and should die as slaves.we can not say that in the last 60 yrs all our chief ministers were either inept or corrupt.there have been many more corrupt chief ministers in other states in india than in bihar.then,what makes bihar stay in the bottom from all angle of developement?

abhay bhagat
portland,oregon,usa

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Print media in Bihar and Delhi can make Nitish look good even better than the most efficient CM Narendra Modi but sooner or later these media created imagery will stop working in his favor. I find it a pallign when so called intellectuals like Ramchanda Guha spew venom against Modi and put likes of Nitish on pedestal. No doubt roads are loking better even schools have more teachers crime is relatively in control but question is what next. What is being done to trigger the industrial growth in Bihar? Doesn't matter who is to blame centre or state fact is we don't see any improvement on the ground.
Anil

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Now it has seriously started looking that Nitish Kumar government is more about PR and hype than sheer able governance actually. For every poor thing he blames central government as it looks easiest to get rid of. What the central government would gain by knowingly pulling down Bihar? Has constitution and Supreme Court vanished from this country that for sorting out these basic infrastructural issues you pass years blaming Central government instead of going to court or taking legal route if central government is really impeding your progress?
Mr. Kumar, central government can never be a bigger enemy of Bihar than Gujarat. You stand nowhere around Gujarat when head on collision between state and central government is the issue. Still Gujarat is at the top of the country because it has got gutsy Chief Minister who really delivers despite of all possible blockade from Central government. Learn from Gujarat how to generate surplus water and electricity. Unlike Bihar Gujarat remains under severe heat most of the year, still power and water crisis is not there, considering tha fact that unlike Bihar largest part of Gujarat has non-fertile desert regions.

Still you keep on taking excuse of central government. You have done nothing to use non-conventional source of energy. Abundant scope for Solar and water energy lays there. You don't tape them. You keep on taking excuse of ethanol and Sugarcane production as if Bihar has nothing to do? You did nothing to raise food processing units. You did nothing to implement Biotechnology institutions and policies for Bihar. You did absolutely nothing for IT sector which was easiest for Bihar. You kept on yelling for demand of central university and when Central University of Bihar was given to you, you created another problem knowingly by claiming that you have no land for this university in Patna and wish to move it to Motihari like backward place where this University could die of its own like your did with NIPER like great institution, which is dying and being wanted in some useless accommodation with no capacity to play globally.

You do nothing for bringing power on your own, changing state policies, implementing policies with iron hand given the impeccable public mandate. So conclusion is that you lack a political will and only make statements about development of Bihar. Were you sleeping for past 6 years after knowing the fact that electricity is the prime and foremost requirement for even an inch of development? On which basis you called for investment proposal when you had no arrangements for even running Patna on 24 hours electricity? Do you want universities and institutions and the number of medical and engineering colleges you claim to open, run on lantern? Or you just want to show all this on paper while all will remain like Lalu's charwaha Vidyalaya. having mobility whenever some inquiry team plans to visit that institution for assessment?
Lalu fooled us rustically and you are fooling Bihar in polished manner. 6 years have passed and you have no solution for one of the most important issue for Bihar, and you try to blame central government for everything thinking us as fools?

Ravi Shankar