Patna,(BiharTimes): Bihar, chief minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday announced payment of Rs 10,000 as incentive to students of upper castes, who pass matriculation examination with first division. Besides, he also announced regularisation of contractual employees.

Informing the Assembly about these decisions of his government during Zero Hour the chief minister said a high-level committee to be headed by an officer equivalent to the rank of chief secretary has been assigned the task to submit a report in three months for regularisation of contractual workers in different sectors in the state.

Principal Secretaries of Finance, Education, Health, Road Construction, Water Resources and Law departments would be members of the committee.According to the chief minister scholarship would also be given to students of standard I to X hailing from upper castes whose parents’ annual income is Rs 1.5 lakh or less annually.

There are more than three lakh contractual employees in Bihar in Education, Health and other sectors. They have been agitating for regularisation of job.Incidentally, the announcement came a couple of days after former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi’s rally in Patna, where he once again raised these issues.Political observers termed it as a move to woo voters ahead of the Assembly election.