Despite the Planning Commission’s stated unwillingness to raise Bihar’s annual plan size for the next fiscal (2011-12) than the current fiscal, the Nitish Kumar-led government is adamant on keeping it at `24,000 crores and making efforts to convince the Central panel about the state’s need for more funds.
Chief minister Nitish Kumar of the JD(U), who has been constantly complaining about the Central government treating backward Bihar in a unfairly despite signs of its growth, left for New Delhi on Monday to have his second round of meeting with Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on Tuesday. In a meeting earlier this month, Mr Kumar had apprised Mr Ahluwalia of the difference in estimates of various projects and urged him to raise Bihar’s plan size to `24,000 crores.
The Planning Commission, which had approved Bihar’s plan size for 2010-11 at `20,000 crores, has already fixed it at `18,000 crores. The panel told the state government in a communication last month that only `11,000 crores out of the `20,000 crores was spent till December 2010 and that there was no logic in raising the plan size for 2011-12, said sources.
Mr Kumar took up the matter with the commission’s member Narendra Jadhav in Patna on Sunday and, according to sources, managed to convince him Bihar’s need for more money to keep up the momentum of the current growth.