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27/09/2013
Panel member Shaibal disagrees with Rajan report
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Patna, (BiharTimes): The Raghuraj Raman Committee report recommendation has generated much political firework in Bihar. Nitish Kumar hailed the report as major victory of his long struggle for special status to Bihar..Interestinglym report suggested completely doing away with the “Special Category” status provided to some states. The committee recommendations have virtually proved dampener to Nitish Kumar’s campaign for grant of special category status to Bihar despite misplaced celebration in ruling party JDU office in Patna. The worst happened when one of the panel members from Bihar Shaibal Gupta who is considered very close to Nitish Kumar gave a note of dissent on the point when the report made no provision for “Special Status”. Gupta said “The Report has recommended the categorisation of the states in 3 groups viz least developed, less developed and relatively developed, with no provision for 'Special Category States'. In this context, I may like to bring to the attention of the Committee that from the recent pronouncements of the Central Government, it is apparent that the institution of the Committee on Composite Development Index and the agenda of 'Special Category Status' are not wholly unrelated.” He expressed his unhappiness on many criteria of backwardness and gave his note that he had repeatedly drawn attention of the members to those anomalies. Since his repeated requests remained unheeded, he mentioned “I am constrained to submit this note of dissent on the final Report.” Shaibal went ahead in his note saying that it seemed there was a concerted strategy not only to deny Bihar the ‘Special Category Status’, but also denying its legitimate demand by putting it on a higher rank in the underdevelopment index. The Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said ‘our concern was addressed and new parameters were now considered as an index for backwardness. He also mentioned that nine other states along with Bihar would be benefitted by the new criteria. He also termed it as a victory for Bihar Reacting to the Dr Raghuram Rajan Committee report former Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi said that it diluted the case of Bihar by clubbing it with 10 states in the category of “Least Developed”. Talking to BiharTimes he said it amounted to khoda pahad nikli chuhiya (making a mountain out of a mole hill)––a total exercise in futility. The people of Bihar have been cheated by both the Congress and Janata Dal (United) in the name of special category status.The Committee in its report hardly made any mention of granting special category status to Bihar. Senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi today expressed disappointment with the Raghuram Rajan panel report which bracketed Bihar among backward states and said it will get nothing for it.
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