Bihar News, Latest News from Bihar, News of Bihar, Biharprabha News |
- Railways to introduce eco-friendly toilets
- Bihar keen to setup Eastern economic corridor
- Businesses eager to setup units in Bihar
- Bihar to increase milk output by 50 percent
- Bihar police use Dugdugi to make criminals surrender
| Railways to introduce eco-friendly toilets Posted: 31 May 2011 08:14 AM PDT PATNA: The Indian Railways recently signed an MoU with the Defence Research and Development Organization ( DRDO) to develop environ-ment-friendly toilet system to improve further hygienic condition in toilets on running trains across the country. According to a Railway Board official, the design of the proposed new toilet system has been developed by the DRDO. The railways has decided to manufacture two rakes fitted with eco-friendly toilet system. The rail-ways would first put these rakes on trial and then the newly developed technology would be gradually introduced in superfast trains, he said. The Board official said that the objective behind introducing the new system is to maintain zero discharge toilet system ( ZDTS) on running trains. The Research Design and Standard Organization (RSDO) and IIT, Kanpur, have jointly developed its design. This system was put on trial on one bogie of a train recently, he said. The Board official maintained that the railways greatest concern is to provide homely comforts to passengers on running trains. The concept of providing green toilets on running trains has been the pilot project of the railways. It will be introduced gradually in most of mail and express trains in different zones of the railways, he said. During the trial of the new system, it was observed that the response of passengers travelling by Bundlekhand-Varanasi Express was good. The railways would manufacture more such new bogies fitted with eco-friendly toilets soon, the sources said. |
| Bihar keen to setup Eastern economic corridor Posted: 31 May 2011 06:20 AM PDT PATNA: Bihar has pitched for the creation of an Eastern Economic Corridor from Raxaul to Paradeep port through the upcoming bridge on the Ganga at Bakhtiarpur saying it will provide a big boost to the economy of not only Bihar, but also of Jharkhand and Orissa. Bihar’s demand note urges the Planning Commission to seriously consider this issue and said that the state requires a dedicated port for import, movement of coal and other material for its power plants. “Bihar is ready to invest in building such a port in one of eastern coastal states,” it said. Briefing mediapersons about the deliberations at the first session of the Commission’s regional consultation with the state governments and other stakeholders on the approach paper to the 12th Five Year Plan on Monday, principal secretary, planning and development, government of Bihar, Vijoy Prakash said that representatives of all the five participating states stressed that Central schemes should be minimized and regional schemes be allowed in the social sector. While demanding special category status, CM Nitish Kumar said that the proliferation of Centrally-sponsored schemes, now over 147, is not rationale since these are resources which belong to the states and should devolve in them to select their most optimum use. “Many far reaching decisions are taken by the Central government, which impinge on the resources and autonomy of states. We need to build on best international practice for making our polity a truly working federalism,” said Nitish. He also stressed on the need for a permanent National Poverty Commission to define, update and adapt the approach on poverty amelioration and identify the persons living below the poverty line. The CM pointed out that per capita power consumption in Bihar is only 100 units against national average of over 700 and demanded that 50 percent of the power allocated from existing Central investments in Bihar should be allocated to the state, all the thermal power plants be assured coal linkage and initiatives be made with Bhutan on hydel energy. Bihar has demanded about Rs 43,000 crore for implementation of the Right to Education saying the share of Central and state should be 90:10 under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA). A special package has been demanded to meet the additional requirement of about three lakh classrooms in the existing schools. It has been urged that the state government’s scheme of distributing bicycles to boys and girls studying in Class IX and uniforms to all boys and girls from Class III to XII be made part of the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan. The CM suggested the Plan panel for entitlement-based and habitation-based planning and per capita expenditure brought on par with the national standard, a rainbow revolution for holistic development of the entire agrobased production system, direct cash transfer modalities to enable the poor people to purchase grains as per their requirements and Centre’s special plan for revival or merger of sick PSUs. In his concluding remarks, Nitish said, “Achieving a 9.5 percent rate of growth cannot in itself be acceptable if income equalities and regional divides are not bridged. The slogan, `inclusive growth’, must be translated into a coherent action plan.” |
| Businesses eager to setup units in Bihar Posted: 31 May 2011 04:07 AM PDT Balram Singh Yadav, 46, the Mumbai-based Managing Director of Godrej Agrovet, has toured Bihar on business six times in the last seven years. Each time he visits, he finds the overall atmosphere has improved over the last time. On his early visits, the road from Patna airport to his hotel used to be potholed and dusty. He never dared venture out of his hotel in the evenings for fear of being mugged. That is all history now. “A fruit seller can stay on the street till as late as 10 p.m. if he wants to,” he says, describing the new Bihar. “Rickshaws freely ply late into the night.” Not surprisingly he is keen his company take advantage of the transformation. Godrej Agrovet is setting up a Rs 70-crore cattle and poultry feed mill at Hajipur, across the Ganga river from Patna. “Bihar will emerge as the next growth engine for eastern India,” he says. Hajipur, too, is the destination of biscuit major Britannia, which is setting up a 50,000-tonne bakery there. “Bihar represents a large and growing market opportunity and therefore we decided to create a manufacturing unit closer to the market,” says a company spokesman, declining to give any more details. Ruchi Soya, the Mumbai based $2.6 billion (Rs 11,700 crore) FMCG group, best known for its edible oils, is pumping Rs 200 crore into setting up agro-processing centres at Kaimur, 170 km northwest of Patna, near the Uttar Pradesh border. West Coast Paper, promoted by Shree Digvijay Cement Company and later taken over by SK Bangur Group, has plans for a board unit at Rohtas, 140 km southeast of Patna, while infrastructure giant Jaypee Associates is working towards a fly ash-based cement factory at Motipur, part of Muzaffarpur district.
Bihar, home to 104 million people, according to provisional estimates in the 2011 census and ranked third by population behind Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, was always a draw for industry, but until the Nitish Kumar-led government took charge in November 2005, the abysmal law and order situation and poor infrastructure kept investors away. But now, with both policing and connectivity having improved dramatically, industry sees no reason to be diffident. “Over 40 per cent of the country’s population resides in the east and the north-eastern region,” points out Dinesh Shahra, Managing Director of the Ruchi Soya Group. “Bihar provides a huge opportunity for upgrading consumers from loose and poor quality oil to packaged refined edible oil.” And consumption is rising rapidly. The state’s gross domestic product has been rising by more than 10 per cent annually for the last five years, compared to an average of 3.5 per cent per year between 2000 and 2004, when the Rabri Devi-led Rashtriya Janata Dal government was in power. Manufacturing and services have both shown substantial increases: the contribution of manufacturing to the state’s income has increased from 10.5 per cent in 1999/2000 to 16.61 per cent a decade later, while that of services has gone up from 50.50 per cent to 61.65 per cent in the same period. Agriculture’s share may have consequently declined; even so agricultural growth in 2009/10 was 8.85 per cent. In a reflection of the frenzied construction activity in the state, Bihar is now the fastest growing cement market in the country – 28 per cent growth in the past year against a national average of nine per cent. With better roads and little fear of attracting the attention of car thieves or kidnappers, people are buying cars: leading auto maker Maruti Suzuki reported a 30 per cent rise in sales in Bihar between April and December 2010. Government figures show that the number of vehicles in the state has grown four times, from around 80,000 in 2005/06 to 3.19 lakh in 2009/10. Many more people are visiting the state, as revealed by the amount of aircraft movement: in 2004/05, a total of 3,814 aircraft landed or took off from the state’s airports; five years later the figure was 10,726. Telephone connections – landlines and mobiles taken together – have risen 10-fold in five years, from 4.2 million in 2005/06 to 41.5 million until March this year. With growing incomes, people are buying more: FMCG major Samsung’s sales grew by 25 to 30 per cent between April and December last year. No doubt problems remain, land availability being primary among them. Godrej Agrovet needs just 10 acres to set up its 84,000-tonne facility, but it has not got it yet. “I’m yet to hear any positive news,” says Yadav. “Industry needs faster acquisition of land for developing new, modern industrial parks,” says an industrialist who is scouting for a suitable site in the state. “They should provide land where industry wants to go. The industrial agenda should precede the political agenda.” Unable to secure land, the state cabinet in January approved new rules relating to the conversion of agricultural land into non-agricultural, which effectively absolves the government of responsibility in getting land for industry. These rules leave buyers free to purchase agricultural and other land directly from farmers at market rates and use it for industrial purposes, after paying a conversion fee. But the decision is unlikely to set industry rejoicing, since it is looking for land not just anywhere, but in places where the infrastructure it needs is already available or can be easily set up. In particular, it is eyeing the old industrial estates around some towns in Tirhut division such as Hajipur and Muzaffarpur as well as Bhagalpur and Gaya, where it is still the government that controls the limited land available. “The government has to take the initiative,” says Yadav. Other major stumbling blocks are the lack of reliable power supply, the frequent occurrence of floods and droughts and the absence of skilled manpower. Bihar is a power deficient state with a total generating capacity of less than 600 MW against a peak demand of 3,000 MW. “We haven’t seen big projects rolling out,” says a CEO unwilling to be named. But the state machinery says power projects have a long gestation period. In April, the state cabinet gave its nod to a 1,320 MW coalbased power plant to be built at a cost of Rs 7,280 crore by the Kolkata-based India Power Corporation. “There are many more projects in the pipeline,” assures Sushil Kumar Modi, Bihar’s Deputy Chief Minister. Gautam Adani, Chairman of the $5.6 billion (Rs 25,000 crore) Adani Group, is also looking out for opportunities in the power sector. “We could look at power, mining and agro-based industries in Bihar,” says Adani. Currently, the majority of industrial projects headed for Bihar are agro-based. But the state has the geographical advantage of two mineral rich neighbours, Jharkhand and Orissa, which makes it an ideal location for power, cement and other non-agro industries as well. Overall, industrialists remain hopeful, being particularly impressed by the attitude of the bureaucracy. “We found bureaucrats very accommodating, cooperative and determined to bring development to the state,” says Shahra of Ruchi Soya. If Bihar can overcome the land and power bottlenecks, the entry of Indian business houses will only accelerate in future. |
| Bihar to increase milk output by 50 percent Posted: 31 May 2011 02:13 AM PDT PATNA: To meet the growing demand for milk from Bihar and outside, Sudha Dairy, owned by Bihar State Milk Co-operative Producers Federation Limited (Compfed), is currently working on a plan to increase its milk output by over 50% by the end of 2011-12 fiscal. According to official sources, at present, Compfed has 14 dairies with a daily production of 14 lakh litres. This is sought to be increased to 22 lakh litres by the end of current financial year. With this objective, Compfed is setting up several new dairies and expanding the capacities of many old ones. Sources said that three new dairies are likely to be commissioned by this fiscal at Biharsharif, Dehri-On-Sone and Jamui. While Biharsharif dairy will have a capacity of 4 lakh litres per day, Dehri-On-Sone will produce 1 lakh litres of milk daily and Jamui dairy 10,000 litres daily. Besides, the capacity of Samastipur Dairy is being expanded to 5 lakh litres from 2.5 lakh litres daily and of Muzaffarpur dairy to 2.5 lakh litres daily from the present 1.5 lakh litres. The capacities of Compfed’s other dairies at Ara, Gaya, Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Darbhanga, Kaimur and Bokaro are also being expanded. Meanwhile, demand for Sudha Dairy’s milk from within Bihar and outside Bihar remains buoyant. Said an official, “We are currently supplying milk to Delhi, UP, Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal and Assam. There is demand from Andhra Pradesh and other areas too. On the other hand, local demand, too, has gone up.” Sudha Dairy is geared up to meet this demand, he said.
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| Bihar police use Dugdugi to make criminals surrender Posted: 30 May 2011 10:07 PM PDT Patna: It’s worse than a Harry Potter ‘howler’ – voice letters that rebuke offenders publicly and self destruct. Police in Bihar have hit upon a novel idea to smoke out criminals evading arrest by sending out marching bands playing the folk instrument ‘dugdugi’ and publicly shaming the offender. |
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