Patna, Feb 14 (Agency) Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday reiterated his demand for special status for Bihar, saying despite best efforts using limited available resources since his government was voted to power in the year 2005, Bihar is still far behind from national average of various development parameters. Kumar while interacting with media persons after ‘Janata Darbar ‘ organised in CM secretariat premises after more than one month due to increased Corona positive cases, said that demand for special status to Bihar was being raised by him since long.
A number of programmes, meetings and drives were carried out to exert pressure on the Centre but genuine demand of people of the state for special status to Bihar had not been accepted so far, he lamented. ” With limited resources at our disposal, we have made sincere efforts to improve the scenario since long when NDA government was voted to power in 2005 but despite marked improvement in several sectors, Bihar is still far behind from national average of various development parameters”, Chief Minister said adding that these realities also came to light from reports released by NITI Ayog in recent past.
After findings of NITI Aayog in its various reports that Bihar lagged behind on the development path, it was all the more important to grant special status to Bihar, he stressed. Kumar said that the then Congress government had constituted a committee to study the backwardness of states following sustained demand for special status to Bihar. In the report of the committee, the fact of backwardness of Bihar was established, he further said adding that the then Congress government at the Centre had not done anything even after the report of the committee was submitted to the government.
Chief Minister said that demand for special status had been placed before the Centre long back and it was for the government whether it had to accept not. If other backward states were also demanding special status, the Centre could also look into their demands, he remarked. Kumar said that the population density of Bihar was the highest in India and perhaps it was also the highest in the world. Bihar had marched much ahead on various indices of development where the state was in the year 2005. But Bihar still lagged behind which proved the fact that the state really needed a special status category, he noted.