Nitish Kumar blames Centre for backwardness of Bihar

PATNA: Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today blamed successive Central governments for "neglecting" Bihar which slid into morass of economic backwardness since Independence before the NDA government took upon it to undertake development, the results of which are showing.

"Bihar has been rendered great injustice historically throwing the state in the morass of economic backwardness from which the state and its people are trying to steer out on development path," Kumar said at the valedictory function of three-day Global Summit on Changing Bihar.

There was no investment made in Bihar during the British colonial rule and even after Independence by successive Central governments, Kumar said, adding that if the state found itself backward then the "blame should squarely rest" on the Central governments and its policies.

Citing an example of the flaws of the Centre's economic policies for Bihar, Kumar recalled that the state and adjoining parts of Uttar Pradesh used to produce 25 per cent of the country's sugar output around the time of Independence, but the same has shrunk to only two per cent at present.

There were a number of sugar mills thriving in the state and employing large number of people in Bihar, but due to the successive Central government's "discriminatory" policies, the sugar mills in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were closed down even as the sugar industry found its moorings in the Western parts of the country, he said.