M A I N   N E W S

‘NDA, not UPA, started Bihar grant’
Nitish hits out at PM over funds
Sanjay Singh
Tribune News Service

Patna, October 17
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley have sharply reacted to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s charges against the state government that it had failed to utilise the central funds.

While addressing an election meeting at Narpatganj (Araria) on Saturday, the Prime Minister had said that the Centre had been providing a special assistance of Rs 1,000 crore to Bihar since 2004 but the state government had failed in carrying out its responsibilities to utilise it for development.

Addressing mediapersons here on Sunday, Nitish said, “I am shocked to hear what the Prime Minister has said. I may have made the mistake of treating him as a different personality in his party. I have always had lots of respect and admiration for him. By virtue of being the Prime Minister, he is the leader of the country. It is a different matter that he treats somebody else as his leader.” But, he said, the PM should have “checked on the facts” pertaining to funds being provided by the Centre to Bihar from his officials before making a public statement on this issue. “Now that he has raised this issue, I would like to invite him for a public debate on it.”

Referring to Prime Minister’s statement that Bihar was being given a special assistance of Rs 1,000 crore per annum since 2004 when UPA came to power, Nitish said, “I would like to correct the PM. The fund he is talking about is actually being given to the state since 2002 when NDA government was in power. It was not a special assistance but a compensation to the state after its bifurcation and the recommendation for it was made by Bihar Reorganisation Act as all the internal resources had gone to Jharkhand.”

Moreover, these funds were only ‘notional’, as provisions had been made by the Centre itself that the money (Rs 1,000 crore per year) would be given directly to the central agencies for carrying out the schemes in Bihar. The state government had no role to play in it. If the money had not been spent on time, the fault lies with the central agencies and not the state government, Nitish clarified.

And now when the Prime Minister found time to come to Bihar to campaign for his party, he has framed baseless allegations against the state government, Nitish said.

BJP leader Arun Jaitley said the Prime Minister was attacking the federal structure. He should realise that “the money being provided to the states, including Bihar, by the Centre was not from the Congress party’s fund but it is people’s money that comes in the form of taxes and there is a formula for its distribution decided by the finance commission, Jaitley said.

Continuing in the same vein, Jaitely said the economist in Manmohan Singh should have appreciated the performance of NDA government in Bihar for the positive growth rate recorded in the state. Earlier, Bihar’s growth rate was in negative, he informed.