Patna: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar
today described as 'extremely serious' a reported World Bank report on bribery in highway project and NHAI officials being
put up in posh hotels and offered gold coins and demanded a
'thorough probe' into it.
The guilty should be punished, Kumar told newsmen here
and added that he had doubts in his mind about scam in
Lucknow-Muzaffarpur highway.
On Army Chief V K Singh's revelations about offer to
bribe him, Kumar said "The Centre is not finding a solution to
any issue on time and adopting it right way ... It has led to
increase in controversies and disputes. It is quite
unfortunate."
Reiterating his demand for special state status for
Bihar, Kumar said it was now being examined by the Planning
Commission and a delegation of the state had already made
detailed presentation before it.
Referring to Sam Pitroda's remark that there was no need
to grant special status category to Bihar to woo private
investment, Kumar said he was just an advisor to the PM on
public information, infrastructure and innvoation and was
neither a member of the Planning Commission nor had any kind
of relation with the union finance ministry.
"He (Pitroda) is not the right person to answer any
question on according special state category to Bihar," Kumar
said adding it is for Planning Commission and union finance
ministry to decide on the demand.
Reacting to a question on Bihar MPs Kirti Jha Azad and
Lalu Prasad not spending their MPLAD funds in the state, he
said the Centre needed to take a decision on the scheme.
"We have scrapped the MLA Local Areas Development scheme
and transparency is being maintained on the selection process
of the new scheme for regional development in Bihar," he said.
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, April 03, 2012, 19:22