Beginning this Republic Day, it will be Bihar’s ministers and not the IAS officers who will hoist the tricolour at government-organised functions at the state’s district headquarters on national days.
The state government revived an old, abandoned circular to bestow the prestigious task on the ministers.
Ministers in charge of individual districts will have to be present at the district headquarters on Republic Day and Independence Day to unfurl the national flag there. The new rules, officially issued late on Sunday evening, will end the 16-year-old practice of district magistrates and divisional commissioners conducting these ceremonies at the headquarters of the areas under their charge.
There are, of course, scope for some exceptions in the rules. Since some ministers have been allotted charge of two districts each, they will have to choose the district where they will like to hoist the tricolour and the task in other district under their charge will be conducted by the divisional commissioner.
There are nine such districts currently. Patna district has, however, been kept out of these rules.
By retrieving and reviving a 1991 circular containing these rules, the Nitish Kumar government reportedly aims at putting an end to the bitterness often developing between the IAS officials and the people’s elected representatives over the hoisting of the national flags in the districts. The 1991 circular by the then Lalu Prasad Yadav government had gone into disuse by 1995.