Bihar development due to Centre's liberal funding: Ramesh

Union Rural Development minister Jairam Ramesh today said that the Centre was pumping a lot of funds for Bihar in the rural sector and cited reports of compromising with quality and delayed execution of projects by Nitish Kumar government in many cases.
The Centre has been making available a lot of funds to Bihar under MGNREGA, Indira Awas Yojna and Prime Minister Gram Sadak Yojna (PMGSY), Ramesh told reporters.
Giving details, he said under PMGSY a total of 17,000 km of roads have been approved for Bihar in the past three years starting from 2011 at a cost of Rs 12,000 crore.

In the next financial year 2014-15, 4000 km more roads would be approved for the state to promote better connectivity in its villages.
Similarly, under Indira Awas yojna in which Rs 70,000 is given for building a unit and Rs 75,000 per unit in 11 naxal effected districts of the state, six lakh houses have been approved for the state.
"Bihar is getting 25 per cent of the total funds of this scheme across the country," he said.

Under MGNREGA scheme, the state has been extended the facility to construct 10 lakh toilets at a cost of Rs 10,000 per unit during the current fiscal 2013-14, he said.

Ramesh said he did not want to extract political mileage out of providing liberal funds to Bihar.
In reply to a question as why he was giving all these official details at a function of Congress party, Ramesh said he was in "double role" of an active Congress member as well a minister.
"I am minister only because of the fact that I am a Congress member...So whats wrong in talking about development at this function," he said by way of justification.
Ramesh pointed to complaints received about the state making compromise in maintaining quality in execution of these schemes. Besides there has been reports of some rural roads only half built despite release of total funds.

"The Centre's job is to provide fund and its duty of the state to execute the schemes by maintaining quality," he said.