Unlike the Global Meet on Resurgent Bihar 2007, which was initially a Civil Society initiative, this Meet is purely a government exercise.   

The BiharTimes, Institute of Human Development and other organizations took initiative in the 2007 Meet, but due to the invitation of the then President it latter turned into a government programme. Though BiharTimes had been taking initiative to bring together the Non-Resident Indians and Non-Resident Biharis on one platform from its very inception in October 1999 the Meet in 2007 ended up yielding no significant result as the government failed to make any follow up. Even the meet website became non-functional just after the meet.  It was set up only recently on the eve of the latest Meet.  

Though normally such gatherings are organized to brand the state and attract investments the first one failed to achieve any such result because no action was taken up later. It was just a three day event only. Some frustrated NRBs who have some big plans for their native state expressed their anguish in BT. Red-tapism in bureaucracy continued as earlier and state lost a great opportunity of getting investments particularly from Bihari diasporas.

Aware of the failure of the first one the chief minister and his deputy had repeatedly been stating that the latest Global Meet is not an investors meet and no MoU is going to be signed.

However, the critics are of the view that if no such thing is going to happen then why is the government wasting so much time, money and efforts in bringing over 1,000 delegates from India and abroad? Why invest so much amount in inviting people like Meghnad Desai, Prof Nicholas Stern of London School of Economics and others? After all they all are well aware of Bihar and its needs. Dr Desai, along with N K Singh, is even associated with the Nalanda International Univeristy project, which appears to have run into rough weather.

After all what will these academics do for reducing poverty in Bihar.  After all the state had organized one such three-day poverty seminar in July 2007 too, but that too yielded no result.

The overdoses of academic discussions particularly by economists in Patna have virtually made this whole event into academic seminar.  

Thus the Global Meets are now no more than but cosmetic exercise. Without concrete achievement,  spending about three crore from state exchequer for this kind of celebration can hardly be rationalized.

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