Mr Nitish Kumar, CM of Bihar, despite being applauded by the national and now international media (courtesy the Congressional report in US), doesn’t change the ground reality that when it comes to basic governance Bihar still does not stand anywhere in India. Earlier it was the goons who were indulging in all kinds of anti social activities in state n now it's d turn of the police. Yes, police brutalities are only increasing by the day in the state. The most recent is a bunch of policemen (some are not even wearing proper uniform) beating unarmed n helpless women and that too in CM's home district Nalanda. The fact is that many such incidents go unnoticed and unreported as people are not always present with cameras to capture them. When people suffering from flood and hunger, raise their voices for help and support, they only get bullets n lathicharge as help, from the police on orders of the government. Ironically, these are the same people who voted for change in Bihar and were hailed for their choice. Guess they never anticipated the real change which was waiting for them.

Now lets see the standard of electricity in Bihar, one of the basic criteria of development. Of the total 800 MW supplied to Bihar, 375 is for essential services, of the remaining 425 MW, Patna gets 400 and rest of the state, gets only 25 MW. So still powercuts for more than three to four days in stretch is normal for most parts of the state. While for the Capital, 3 to 4 hours of power cut is considered normal. To sum it up less than 6 percent of the rural households have access to electricity, on the other hand the all India figure stands at around 50%. And this is one of the primary reasons, the state despite making cosmetic improvements in it's law and order situation, has failed to attract any major investment by MNCs so far.

Now let's take the example of good administration of the state. Well I am talking about a simple service which the state govt provide to it's citizens, a Driving Licence. I submitted an application to renew and update my Driving licence to the Transport office in Patna, the capital of Bihar. I submitted each n every document as asked by the officials in July’s 1st week, n I was asked to collect it on 25th of July. 20 days they asked just for the renewal n updating of the Licence. Compare this with Delhi where the whole process of applying and getting a new driving licence takes 24 hrs, yes 1 day. Anyway when I went to collect it after a month ( I gave the Dept. 10 more days) I was told that it's ready but I’ll get it only after a week as there is some formality left. So this time I went after 20 days thinking I’ll definitely get it this time. But I was so wrong. I forgot this is Bihar. They asked me for a fresh copy of my address proof that too after almost two months. Wow I wonder whether they were sleeping the whole time or this is Anna Effect.. As now they are a bit scared of asking for bribes so the best way is to make people wait endlessly, as at last poor public will only offer them that extra incentive to keep them going n delivering what they are expected to do. Mr CM if this is the standard of administration in the state capital. God only knows whats happening in the other parts of the state and how the mango people are being made to suffer for the basic services...we don’t only want a suave and smart CM who is climbing up the popularity chart, we want a smart, effective and honest administration which will make the state climb up the development chart as well.

Harshvardhan
RF Engineer
Telecom MNC,Delhi