Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will embark on his new yatra (journey) from Tuesday, his first during the current tenure, and will go to the villages which he had visited some eight years ago during his first tenure. The 2009 winter travel was billed as vikas yatra and Nitish had toured 19 villages where he stayed overnight and met cross section of villagers and saw the ground realities. Eight years later Nitish will go to same villages and review the situation.
The first stoppage will be Patilar village in Bagaha district on Bihar-Nepal border which Nitish had first visited on January 19, 2009 and braving the biting cold and dense fog had camped in a tent on the ground of a school. The villagers huddled under a shamiana had told the CM their problems and handicaps and he had ordered the officials to look into them on priority.
Now after eight years the Chief Minister will have the opportunity to see himself how much his officials did to minimise the public woes and whether their problems really solved or only multiplied due to official apathy. During the first two days he will visit three more villages: Kataiya, Parshurampur and Belwakothi.
“I am going to review the development works there. I will revisit the 19 villages in different districts where I had stayed in 2009 and review the developmental works and projects in presence of the officials and villagers and their representatives. We seek their opinion and incorporate them in the implementation process,” said Nitish.
The ground reports suggest that nothing much was done in those areas despite clear cut instructions of the CM. A source from Bettiah in West Champaran district informed, “When the officials came to know about the CM’s plan to visit the villages he had visited and promised to the people in 2009 have rushed to those spots and doing some window dressing. The situation in those areas is still the same or worse.”
Back in 2009 Nitish had said about his yatra, “This is the most suitable forum to interact with people in a democratic set up. This will provide me an opportunity to have first hand knowledge of peoples’ problems, shortcomings and gaps.”
Now eight years after, Nitish aims to see himself if his mission to ensure “dominance of lok Shakti (public power) over the Raj Shakti (administrative power) bore some fruits. The CM had visualised trough his mass contact mission the role reversal as what prevailed that Satta (power) dominated Janata (people).
One interesting and historic thing had happened at that time. During the course of his yatra Nitish had held a cabinet meeting in Birbighi village in Begusarai district and all the Ministers and top officials from Patna went there in luxury buses.
Nitish had attempted to make people bolder and vocal in airing their grievances during his 2009 Vikas yatra and encouraged them to speak the reality even if it was against the local Babudom. It would be interesting to see what people tell him now because it is a known fact that the officials did very little to solve the problems.