Crime and lawlessness are down sharply in Bihar”, said Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar at a recent event held in Patna by Business Standard Hindi. “If you go to any park in Patna in the morning, you will find cars of every description”, he said, and then explained what he meant. In the past, he said, people were scared to make any expenditure that indicated the kind of wealth they had, such was the fear of kidnappers and extortionists.
This was no longer the case, he suggested. But no sooner had he finished than the representative of SKS Microfinance pointed out that there had been 42 cases of its people being robbed of cash in the state in 2009, up from 17 in 2008. Though piqued that the matter had not been reported to the police, Kumar offered to look into it then and there.