Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who had unveiled his “Nitish ke saat nishchay” (Seven commitments of Nitish) before the last Assembly election, has now come out with a roadmap for implementation of these programmes charted out for the benefit of largely the poor villagers, youth, students and women.
A Bihar Vikas Mission has been formed under the CM and his poll strategist and now adviser on policies implementation Prashant Kishore is supposed to figure out the policies and strategies to implement them in a mission mode. To meet the expenses on this mission, Bihar’s plan size may be enhanced to the tune of over Rs90,000 crore. Altogether on these seven commitments a whopping Rs239,800 crore would be spent in five years, according to a rough estimate with Rs55,600 crore only on electric connection and uninterrupted power to each household.
The CM on Thursday held a high level review meeting with the principal secretaries of all the departments and sought their views on budget preparation. “We are in the process of finalizing budget for next fiscal. It is important to hold meeting and seek opinion of all the stakeholders and we have received the budgetary demands of all the departments,” said Nitish.
In the budget, sources said, the concentration will be on the projects related to the departments of education, health, IT, road construction, rural development and power
Nitish seven commitments are: economic development of youth, job quota for women, electric and tap water to each household, cemented lanes and drainage in each village, construction of toilets in each home and creation of job and trade opportunities.
It is expected that once the experiment of Bihar Vikas Mission takes shape from CM Secretariat down to block offices, it may create a new precedence in the country. The mission has been formed for the total implementation of the seven commitments and this experiment will not be dependent only on the bureaucracy. Sources said Prashant Kishore is in process of raising a work force of 1,500 professionals which will have direct responsibility of the implementation of the projects in association with the Government agencies. Each department and government office has been asked to suggest what type of professionals they would need for this giant task.
The professionals would be deputed in Secretariat, commissionaires, offices of DMs, tehsil and block offices as per their requirements. “This arrangement will bring to an end the traditional red tapism from government establishments,” an official claimed.
The big question is from where a whopping fund will come to implement these commitments. The government has calculated that from 14th Finance Commission it would receive over Rs 4 lakh crore in five years. The government may utilize from this allocation to meet the expenses and also levy new taxes to increase its revenue.
The seven commitments to be fulfilled in five years and aimed to benefit common masses involve huge fund. The supply of potable drinking water through taps to each household in rural and urban areas will cost Rs 47,700 crore. Only 4% of the population has access to tap water in Bihar an the target is to take it to 1.95 crore houses. The government faces a huge task of making infrastructure for supplying water. Similarly construction of toilets in each house is another giant task. Under this project 1.64 crore houses in rural and 7.52 lakh houses in urban areas, whether they belong to BPl or APl families, and it will cost Rs 28,700 crore. The work on all these projects will start from next fiscal.
Bihar Vikas Mission, headed by the CM, will have a close watch on the performance of each department. The Mission will involve all the Ministers, Chief Secretary, Development Commissioner, GDP, departmental principal secretaries and secretaries besides Prashant Kishore, who will perform the most crucial role. The Mission will hold meeting every month and will be registered under Societies Act. There will be separate budgetary allocation for this.