Patna,(BiharTimes): Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday said the state cannot sustain its double-digit growth rate without private investments.

Talking to reporters after attending the second meeting of the Bihar Industrial Investment Advisory Council in Mumbai he said Bihar's growth is primarily driven by public investment. Unless and until the state has private investment inflows, it would be difficult to sustain growth rate after the next five years.
He said some private investments have come in the past few years, but those were mostly from local entrepreneurs. 

Nitish said that the state needs large investments, which only big industrial houses can make.

The Chief Minister identified power, IT, health infrastructure, education and food processing as the sectors where huge private investments can be made.

The Bihar Chief Minister clarified that the meeting was not for attracting investments, but for discussing necessary changes in industrial policy which can help the state in the long term.

Nitish reiterated the demand for a special category status to Bihar and said the captains of industry also supported his demand at the meeting.

The meeting was attended among others by Vedanta Group chairman Anil Agarwal, ICICI Bank’s Chanda Kochhar, HDFC’s Deepak Parekh, Shikha Sharma of Axis Bank, SEBI chief U K Sinha, ITC’s Y C Deveshwar, Star India’s CEO Uday Shankar etc. Many of them had old Bihar link.

Later Anil Agarwal of Vedanta, who had spent his early life in Bihar, while talking to the media, said his group would increase investment in the state if the special status is granted.