Babus start pro-Nitish campaign

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With Assembly elections round the corner, bureaucrats from Bihar took charge of campaign through a media blitzkrieg showcasing the achievements of the state government under chief minister Nitish Kumar.

The information and public relations department of the Bihar government on Monday organised a seminar for Delhi-based print and electronic media, where secretaries of the various departments made Powerpoint presentations highlighting the achievements of the Nitish Kumar regime vis-à-vis 15 years of the RJD (Lalu-Rabri) rule in the state.
The officials, while keeping their focus limited to the HRD, health and road sectors, randomly accused the Central government for step-motherly treatment meted out to Bihar. Those who addressed the media here included principal secretaries Anjani Kumar Singh (HRD), C.K. Mishra (health) and secretary (road construction).
Moreover, member secretary, Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI), Mr Shaibal Gupta, also shared the dais with the officials and gave a detailed presentation on the state finances and talked about how the work culture has changed in the state and results are visible. He in his presentation talked about the 10-fold increase in the plan expenditure of the state in the last four years.
While giving his presentation on health indicators, Mr Mishra gave a comparative chart in which MMR has gone down from 371 in 2001-03 to 312 in 2004-06. Similarly, he said IMR has also come down in the state from 61 in 2005 to 56 per 1,000 births in 2009. Institutional delivery has increased from 12 per cent to 22 per cent. He, however, said the figures are not at par with the national average the state has to go a long way.
On the HRD front also principal secretary to the department said, the state has achieved manifold. The number of government and aided schools has increased from 52,112 to 70,265.
Enrolment in the school has also jumped from 1,40,79,124 to 1,89,34,280. Even the number of “out of school children” has decreased from 23,15,362 to 7,84,900.