Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Monday responded to a query regarding his assurance to look into the scope of lessening the burden of inflation due to heavy taxes on petroleum products and urged the people to stay prepared for some hard times.
“The country is passing through a tough time due to the pandemic. The Centre, as well as the state government, is spending a huge amount to tide over the crisis. The state government has spent more than ₹10,000 crore on Covid management,” he argued.
Talking to media persons after the customary Janata Darbar—a routine event where people can meet the CM and raise their grievances against the system—Kumar said that the state has been incurring heavy losses owing to the recurring floods.
The CM said that the water resources department (WRD) was carrying out studies about the scope of interlinking of small rivers to minimise the scale of devastation due to recurring floods.
“The WRD is exploring the scope and discussing ways to interlink small rivers. Nearly 57 lakh people have been hit by the current spells of floods, which is not over yet. All the concerned departments have been asked to stay alert to meet any eventuality,” said the CM, adding that he had visited many flood-affected areas over the past few weeks.
In an apparent justification of the government’s reluctance to step in and curb inflation, Kumar said that the government’s top priority was to eradicate the pandemic and at the same time carrying on with its development agenda. “People must stay away from raking up the issue of price rise owing to the difficult times the country is grappling with. Everything would be normal once the Covid thing is gone,” said the CM.
Regarding the state’s plea for conducting the caste-based census, Kumar said that he had nothing more to say on it, as the Centre was required to take a call on it once they (leaders from Bihar) had discussed the issue with the PM. “It will benefit all sections of the society and in no way fan hatred,” added Kumar.
Earlier at Janata Darbar, a girl from Samastipur had accused a deputy superintendent of police (DSP) of sexually exploiting her and said she resorted to raising the issue before the chief minister after her attempts to lodge a case against the cop aborted by the department’s officials. A widow from Valmikinagar in West Champaran alleged that the police were not taking action against local Janata Dal (United) MLA Rinku Singh, on whose behest her husband was killed in February this year.
