New Delhi: On his first visit to New Delhi after becoming the Chief Minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar, sought special status for the state when he meets the Planning Commission on Friday.
"We want special status because Bihar is backward. Uttaranchal got it after the split from Uttar Pradesh. We should get it as after the division of Bihar most of the industries went to Jharkhand. The special status will help the industry flourish and migration will be checked," said Nitish.
He also added that he will be meeting the Prime Minister, the Home Minister, the Finance Minister, the Agriculture Minister and the Deputy chairman of the Planning Commmission and apprise them of the problems facing the state.
Nitish said that Employment Guarantee Scheme should be expanded to include all the districts of the state as at present only 15 out of the 38 districts are cobvered under this scheme.
Building a strong case for a special economic package for Bihar, he said that if the Centre aimed at 10 per cent growth rate in the country, it should pump enough funds in the state to reach the target.
"With a mere four per cent growth rate in Bihar, one cannot think of the country achieving 10 per cent. So, if the Centre is keen on ten per cent rate, it should bring Bihar to that level by investing more funds," he said.
He strongly advocated a blend of development with social justice for the success of democracy and said Government's policies should be formulated keeping this in mind. "If fruits of development do not reach the grassroots, then democracy becomes meaningless," he said.
Kumar, who held key Agriculture and Railway Ministries in the previous Government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, said NDA had done a lot of development work but did not pay much attention to social justice. As a result it was defeated in the Lok Sabha polls.
In Bihar, he said more stress was laid on social justice and less on development, causing resentment among the electorate who voted for development. "Therefore, need of the hour is democracy, development and social justice," he said.
Rejecting a notion that there could be no development work in a democratic set up, he said it could take some time in a democracy to take a decision. But, once a decision has been taken, the work is done, he said.
But the Planning Commission does not seem to be in favour of creating privilged states as Bihar already gets a annual Rs 1000 crore backward regions grant.
"Many states have special problems, but there is no case for expanding the set. It is meant for states whose resource position is weak and so they get 90 per cent of money as Central Grant."
"No other states qualify for this. Bihar has problems on capacity, policy, governance and incentive structure, not on lack of resources," said Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia.
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