The Bihar government’s fight against corruption has gone two steps further with video clips of complaints against some corrupt officials getting uploaded on YouTube and the police department being asked to focus attention on economic crimes.
With its continuing growth up on the socio-economic ladder in recent years, Bihar has been witnessing a massive exchange of ill-gotten cash, raising alarms in the Nitish Kumar-led NDA government. After the state’s rural development ministry recently began uploading video clips of people complaining against corrupt officials on social networking website youtube.com, chief minister Nitish Kumar asked the senior police officials at a meeting to take special interest on tackling the emerging economic crimes.
The government hopes its two-pronged strategy — to embarrass the corrupt by exposing them on YouTube and to get them to justice by a determined wing of the police force — would further bring down corruption in the state. These moves were brought in place as incidents of transactions of fake currency notes, government officials receiving cash as bribes, Maoists allegedly receiving cash for protection.
***
Opium-growers to face action
Narayan Bareth
Jaipur, Oct. 21
The narcotics authorities in the state have shortlisted 3,500 opium cultivators for cancellation of their license as they failed to meet conditions laid down by the government for opium cultivation. The Opposition BJP termed it as anti-farmer policy of the UPA government while social activists in desert region sought a complete ban on opium farming.
“If any cultivator found violating certain norms and conditions, he will lose the license,” deputy narcotics commissioner from Kota, Seeraram Sharma, said. The Central government has also reduced minimum qualifying yield of opium from 58 kg per hectare to 56 kg for the coming crop year.
The farmers in the state were allowed to cultivate opium poppy under the strict supervision of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in the selective tracks notified by the Central government in three states, namely Rajasthan, Madhya Pardesh and Uttar Pardesh. The opium cultivation has spread in country’s 102 tehsils of 22 districts.
According to the DNC office, last year opium production in the state was 483 metric tonnes and over 24,000 farmers were involved in the cultivation with the permission of the government.