This Novel Blog Experience is Enriching

The whole of last week I have been going through the hundreds of responses that have been coming by to my first post. To be honest, for someone like me, they are hugely enriching and insightful. Even as I have grappled for ways to be able to attend to as many of the responses individually, I continue being swamped by a deep sense of beholdedness by the sheer interest that people as distantly located as Md Rashid Reza in Araria district to Viswajeet in Hyderabad to Seema in the United States have shown to the very cause of development of the state of Bihar.

I feel truly humbled that you have so overwhelmingly seen genuine merit in the Mukhya Mantri Balika Cycle Yojana. I shared in my first post the earnestness with which I had approached this Scheme. Your responses clearly prove that in doing so I may have touched the aspirations of young girls and their families in far-flung areas in the state. It naturally gives me a renewed sense of strength.

I use this space to extend my sincere gratefulness to all those who have spared time to respond. You would surely agree that it is humanly impossible to attend to each one of the responses individually. The sheer expanse and diversity of the issues raised across the over six hundred responses so far is a case in point. I feel greatly emboldened though that millions of true aspirations are there to provide the strength of conviction needed to steer Bihar onto a roadmap where opportunities match people’s expectations and capacities.

It is immensely touching to hear from scores of you real life and anecdotal incidences of how the general perception of people towards Bihar and its natives is beginning to show positively healthy shifts across populations. Surely, the goodwill is spreading ….partly by way of the silent works of the government and administration, the radars and scanners of the academia, media and various professional pursuits, but mainly through the many public and private discourses that we as lay citizens engage in on a day-to-day basis. I value the latter immensely, …..possibly why I have ventured to be on such an interactive media as a blogspace.

Surely, this fair sense of goodwill…reverberating alike in places as distant as Bangalore, Noida /NCR and the US…is not for nothing. People often talk of the new roads in Bihar, the refurbished district hospitals and PHCs, a sense of purpose evident in the structures of governance, the general sense of reassurance and ease with which people in the state are going about their daily lives, et al as evidence of a changing Bihar. At the same time, many point to issues like the shortfall in electricity generation, private sector participation, etc. as challenges that need to be addressed. I could agree no more. The two however are distantly different paradigms. While one term of a fairly inclined provincial government may be just about enough to bring about better road connectivity, the exigencies of establishing sustainable sources of energy and entrepreneurship demand far greater spadeworks.

You would be aware that many of the power projects that we initiated in the state are at various stages in the process of establishment and commissioning. From estimation of need to drawing up of detailed proposals to securing resources to finally commissioning power units……it is a tediously extended process. Interspersed are issues like ensuring coal linkages and others that need to be negotiated with the Centre. And, having inherited a state with zero electricity production in 2004-05, we are doing it most assertively. We also continue to explore possibilities of Public Private Partnerships across proposals and interests evidenced by genuine groups in both social and business sectors, even as we have tried to ensure thorough revival of public entities like the Bihar Pul Nirman Nigam into thriving enterprises first.

I am particularly also pleased that the issue of quality higher education is dear to so many of you. Especially when it comes from the fraternity of young aspiring students from Bihar, it carries an unmistakable sense of genuineness. You would have noted the strides the present government has made by way of provisioning for institutions of higher education and learning in the state such as the Bihar chapter of the famous BIT, Meshra, the Chanakya Law University, the Chandragupta Management Institute and the Aryabhatta Knowledge University. The state has proactively facilitated modalities for the setting up of an IIT at Patna and is actively seeking formalisation of the Nalanda International University. We are also looking forward to setting up a new agriculture university in the coming days.

I am beginning to reckon that while the beauty of such an interactive media lies in its universal appeal and accessibility, it draws its core strength from its inclusiveness. How else could this jet-paced fraternity of netizens accept someone like me with such warmth and vibrancy! I have lost count of the number of felicitations welcoming me to be a blogger. Thank you. And, notwithstanding its compatibility to the English language, I would also use the space to write and respond in Hindi.

Moving ahead, I will have opportunities to share several of my thoughts in the times to come. The two issues of law and order and responsive governance in Bihar have probably been the most talked about achievements of this regime. Your responses to the first post, too, prod me to take these up on priority. I will therefore, in this post, try to demystify some of the key strands of these.

I look forward to your views.

Thank you and sincerely,

Nitish