Nitish Kumar: Bihar's change agent charms all

Change you can believe in. That was the crisp one-line message that Bihar’s turnaround chief minister Nitish Kumar sent across to the audience, Nitish Kumar, CM, Bihar


seeking the same backing from corporate chieftains assembled there as much as from the ET jury that chose him for the Business Reformer of the Year accolade.

A minute into his speech, Mr Kumar had the audience in splits. “Bad governance was never Bihar’s problem. The problem was no governance,” he said. The allusion to his mercurial predecessor was in response to the introduction given by the awards ceremony compere Dina Vakil. She had a narrative that illustrated the new change in Bihar: a visiting Japanese delegation told the then CM Laloo Yadav that they could change Bihar into Japan in two weeks. Mr Yadav is believed to have retorted: “Give me Japan, I will turn it into Bihar in one week!”
 
But that’s all history now, and ‘Badland’ is no more a prefix to Bihar. “Around the world, the perception about India is changing. And across India, the perception about Bihar is changing,” the chief minister said.


Bihar under him has now become next only to Gujarat among the fastest-growing states in the country — it has achieved a stunning 11.3% growth in 2008-09. That being feted in high-profile gatherings is not the culmination of his development and growth blueprint for Bihar was made amply clear by the CM in his acceptance speech, although the progress of his efforts is clear.

Outlining the challenges he faced on the road to this milestone, Mr Kumar, once perceived by the political fraternity as the unlikeliest to succeed in turning around the state mired in class and caste problems, pointed to a basic change in government offices: old and dysfunctional Remington typewriters. He inherited these when he took office, but there have been now replaced by computers that are being used to strengthen e-governance across the state.


“I cannot justify this award to the people of Bihar without backing it up with new investments,” Mr Kumar said to an applauding audience. That the state would need the Centre’s help was also emphasised by the CM. Turning to FM Pranab Mukherjee, Nitish Kumar asserted that to ensure Bihar wouldn’t have to look back, the Centre needed to pay special attention. “We have proved that Bihar can be governed. The rest is up to Pranabda,” Nitish said with a wink, as the finance minister smiled approvingly.