Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar is on an inauguration spree with the Assembly elections in sight.
He has unveiled 1,600 infrastructure projects worth Rs 6,300 crore and laid down foundation stones for 334 projects worth Rs 4,100 crore pertaining to bridges, buildings, irrigation facilities and roads in just over two weeks.
Schemes related to roads worth Rs 6,000 crore are waiting to be announced and stamped by his name on their foundation stones. Sources in the government said that projects worth around Rs 2,000 crore are being executed at break-neck speed so that they could also be inaugurated over the next few weeks.
The Opposition is calling this phenomenon as side-effects of the upcoming polls, which is allegedly revealing the government’s mismanagement of the state, while the intelligentsia is questioning his moves.
Delivering his Independence Day speech, Nitish announced the creation of 34,000 posts of schoolteachers and promised appointment of 5,000 nurses, 4,000 doctors, 1,750 lab technicians, pharmacists and sanitary inspectors, and 4,000 college teachers.
“We will also implement a new set of service rules for teachers working under the panchayati raj institutions and municipal bodies. EPF (Employees’ Provident Fund) benefits will also be given to them,” the chief minister said about 3.5 lakh contractual teachers, who are a disgruntled lot due to poor pay and service conditions.
The flood-hit Bind Toli along the banks of Ganga in Patna on Monday. PTI
Nitish’s moves have rattled the intelligentsia and the Opposition parties alike and they are questioning, criticising and attacking him for using the state’s resources to further his poll interests.
“The chief minister is inaugurating projects and also laying down foundation stones indiscriminately to take credit before the polls. These are the side-effects of forthcoming elections. But his actions are unmaking him,” Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) spokesperson Mritunjay Tiwary told The Telegraph.
“These completed projects have been executed hastily and with poor quality control. Approach roads to bridges have been washed away. This is a waste of public money and the people are understanding it,” he added.
Approach roads to two mega bridges on the Gandak river in Gopalganj district were washed away by floodwaters in the last one month leaving the government red-faced. In the first case, the road caved in within a month of its opening, while the second incident occurred prior to the inauguration of the bridge.
Patna-based A.N. Sinha Institute of Social Studies professor and former director D.M. Diwakar said, “We can understand the inauguration of completed projects to show that work has been done, but laying down foundation stones at a time when Nitish’s tenure is ending is beyond understanding and an illusion. These could be an effort to woo voters.”
Diwakar pointed out that under the financial stress emanating from the bad shape of the economy and the lockdown, the state couldn’t afford so many ambitious projects.
“Roads and electricity infrastructure have improved, but Nitish is realising after 15 years of rule that all farms in this agricultural state need irrigation facilities or water. Workers who returned from other states during the lockdown were poorly treated. No jobs have been created for them. Bad quality masks were distributed among the rural people. Corruption reeks from drinking water projects and intra-regional disparity is huge in Bihar,” he added.
The Opposition also took umbrage in Nitish’s Independence Day speech in which he attacked his critics. Without taking names, Nitish criticised those who do nothing else but tweet or write something on the social media without knowing anything.
“The chief minister delivered a political speech on Independence Day and destroyed its pious tradition. Moreover, he should not have used the opportunity to attack the leader of the Opposition (Tejashwi Prasad Yadav),” said RJD legislator Alok Mehta.