http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?281220...How To Build A Reputation No one knows it better than chief minister Nitish Kumar. *Outlook* dissects the Bihar story to ascertain its ‘success’.
Repairing What? Thin Air? <http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?281221>..Bihar is spending money to repair and maintain dams that exist only on paper A clever and manipulative state bureaucracy has siphoned away at least Rs 500 crore by saying it will repair and maintain check dams that exist only on paper. In a series of official documents former independent MLA Umadher Prasad Singh accessed via RTI, it has become clear that after zamindari was abolished in 1954, the length of dams constructed by the erstwhile landlords and rajas has increased magically in Bihar, from 160 km then to 2,367 km today. In Jamui district, there are no zamindari dams according to the water resources department, but Rs 19 crore has been spent to maintain them. The same goes for Darbhanga, where Rs 4.3 crore has been spent to repair 337 km of dams that aren’t. In fact, even in terms of the money allocated and “spent” on these dams, there is no apparent connection with the length of each construction. While one set of official records claims that Nalanda’s 126 km of zamindari dams (which don’t exist as per another set of records) cost Rs 24 crore to repair, only Rs 4.3 crore was enough to fix Darbhanga’s 337 km. This reporter (and photographer) travelled from Patna to Darbhanga, stopping at every settlement on the way, asking if anyone knew where these old dams are. Nobody did. Finally, the dilapidated remains of a zamindari dam were discovered a few miles from Patna. It’s in battered shape, worse than had it been razed on purpose, and certainly not something the state has been spending crores on. The dam is a few miles from Patna, along the Dardha river, next to a settlement no more than 500 metres long. Yet, it is shown to be 13 km long (on paper) and has had Rs 2.5 crore spent to ‘maintain’ and ‘repair’ it. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "humanrights movement" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/humanrights-movement/-/2FMhEoO4HUgJ. To post to this group, send email to humanrights-movement@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to humanrights-movement+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/humanrights-movement?hl=en.
