Patna, (Bihar Times): When Nitish Kumar was the railway minister the RJD leader, Lalu Yadav, used to blame the Union ministers belonging to the National Democratic Alliance of creating hurdles in administrating the state. He used to accuse the Vajpayee government of withholding the fund meant for Bihar on one pretext or the other.

Today on Wednesday at the National Development Council meet Nitish Kumar spoke exactly the same. He said such actions are not expected in a federal set up.

Without naming any central minister, Kumar said it was an important matter concerning centre-state relations.“If anything, the constitution provides for a supportive role and not obstructive,” he said.

Nitish claimed that the overall climate for investment had improved in Bihar. He, however, felt there was a need to increase central outlays to redress infrastructure inefficiencies. The chief minister called for better coal linkages for the newly proposed thermal power stations and higher central allocation of power. The chief minister also touched upon agriculture, rural roads project, urban development and disaster management and rued that schemes for the state having far-reaching impact were very often announced without any prior consultation.

He urged the need for making the NDC meets more purposeful and ought to learn from best international practices.

Incidentally the BJP chief ministers present at the meet hit out at the UPA government for minority appeasement. Surprisingly, they did not raise the issue of Bihar, where too the chief minister, Nitish Kumar, has announced several scholarships for Muslim students––though these announcements have not yet been implemented. This notwithstanding the fact that several BJP leaders from Bihar, including, Rameshwar Prasad, MLA, last month strongly opposed Nitish Kumar’s announcement of November 11 that Muslim students passing matriculation would get scholarship.