Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday announced the entire state as drought affected by adding ten more districts left from the list of 28 affected districts and said his government would use its own resources for relief if the Centre ignored its calls for a Rs 5,062-crores special package.
Mr Kumar’s announcement came in his Independence Day address to the state at Patna’s historic Gandhi Maidan, where he unfurled the tricolour ceremonially. Describing how the droughts were the fourth natural disaster visiting upon Bihar in the past four years, he said the state had been on the path of continuous development due to his government’s dedication.
“Given the past experience of central assistance, which had not been very encouraging, the Bihar government will take up rehabilitation work through its own resources. We will take measures from our own resources to ensure that people do not feel the pangs of hunger or suffer from the lack of potable water,” said Mr Kumar, who faces the polls in three months.
Enumerating the achievements of his JD(U)-BJP coalition government, the chief minister promised to place Bihar in the list of India’s developed states by 2015, the last year of his second term in office if he wins the Assembly polls. In a slew of recent measures to tackle the distress from the drought, Mr Kumar’s government has postponed recovery of cooperative loans, irrigation taxes and electricity surcharge related to agriculture for the current fiscal and sanctioned Rs 570 crores for diesel subsidy to farmers.