Eleven ministers. Zero sum game

But the initiatives of these ministers have not gone beyond cultivating individual vote-banks. There has been no comprehensive gain for the state.

8216;8216;In Bihar, we often fail to unite in development initiatives. Political symbolism overtakes development priority,8217;8217; admits Information and Broadcasting Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. He insists though that Bihar8217;s ministers have been excellent PR pin-ups for the state.

Prasad, Rajiv Pratap Rudy and Divijay Singh have been ministers-in-waiting for visiting foreign dignitaries, been good parliamentarians. Bihar8217;s still waiting for collateral benefit.

But leaders of the ruling RJD say the Union ministers are interested only in being ministers. 8216;8216;Bihar has been treated like a colony by the Centre, irrespective of who rules,8217;8217; is the unquestionable verdict of the one and only Laloo Prasad Yadav.

Laloo cites the Centre8217;s failure to give Bihar a promised special package after Jharkhand was cut away, the non-availability of minimum support price for Bihar8217;s farmers, the weak credit-deposit ratio of nationalised banks in Bihar as examples of 8216;8216;internal colonisation8217;8217;.

8216;8216;If I have one demand to make to the Centre,8217;8217; says Jagadanand Singh, Bihar8217;s water resources minister, 8216;8216;it is to ensure procurement of agriculture products and price security in the farming sector. If rural purchasing power increases, that will automatically kick-start the state8217;s development.8217;8217;

The bickering would not surprise Shaibal Gupta, director of the Patna-based Asian Development Research Institute. 8216;8216;Development,8217;8217; he sighs, 8216;8216;is not politically neutral here, in a simple development project, interests of two politicians may diverge.8217;8217;

Frankly, in no state is development politics-neutral. Yet Punjab with its 12 MPs and Andhra Pradesh with the ransom-seeking skills of Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu pressure the Centre to procure all their grain. Bihar8217;s farmers have to resort to distress selling.

It is not that all the Union ministers from Bihar have not tried. Sharad Yadav and Nitish Kumar got the Food Corporation of India to increase its procurement in the state, but it could not match the dramatically increasing agricultural production.

On the promised-but-never-realised special development package for Bihar, one NDA minister blames the state8217;s 8216;8216;lack of governance8217;8217;. 8216;8216;The funds allotted to the state under various Central schemes are hardly utilised,8217;8217; he says, 8216;8216;this will not inspire the Centre to consider a special package.8217;8217; Between 1992 and 2002 Bihar was allotted Rs 28,227 crore, but the state used only Rs 15,944 crore.

Whatever the apportioning of blame, the fact is Bihar is slipping deeper and deeper into a coma of underdevelopment. Its ministers in the Union government are partners in this crime. In the pieces below, read about their contribution 8212; or the lack of it 8212; to Bihar.

In 1998, when the NDA government was sworn in, the Bihari all Bihar pinned its hopes on was Yashwant Sinha, then finance minister and best placed to help his home state. Today Sinha is no longer finance minister, having moved to the foreign ministry. Neither is he any longer electorally Bihari; his Lok Sabha constituency, Hazaribagh, now falls in Jharkhand. Meanwhile his old state has only regressed

That8217;s Bihar. Eternal homeland of missed chances.

l GEORGE FERNANDES, Minister for Defence, NDA convener
Missing in action

THE convener of the NDA has rarely identified with Bihar. His visits to the state are rare, and he is not known to have used his alleged clout at the Centre to Bihar8217;s advantage. Nalanda constituency, which voted him to power in the last Lok Sabha elections, does not claim to be the home of this Mangalorean. But he has initiated construction of the country8217;s 40th ordnance factory in Nalanda. Though the 3,000-acre ordnance factory complex in Rajgir is expected to transform a handful of sleepy villages and employ more than 1,000 people, Fernandes8217; political survival in the state will depend more on his rapport with Nitish Kumar, who commands the Kurmi voters of Nalanda, than the development works he initiates. Perhaps that8217;s the reason why two dozen calls to Fernandes8217; office requesting information did not elicit response.

l NITISH KUMAR, Rail Minister
Narrow gauge

NITISH Kumar fancies himself as the Vikas Purush and the future chief minister of Bihar. So he walks that extra mile and bends a rule occasionally to bring projects to Bihar, though they are mostly limited to his Kurmi bastion in the Barh-Nalanda region. In recent months, he got the President of India to lay the foundation stone for a rail coach maintenance factory at Harnaut, his birthplace, and got the Prime Minister to inaugurate the construction of a mega rail bridge across Kosi river at Nirmali. Nitish flaunts the creation of East Central Railways 8212; a new division 8212; headquartered in Hajipur as his most spectacular achievement. There are other rail projects stations, lines, trains, electrification which Nitish can claim credit for.

Earlier, as Agriculture Minister, he tried to get the FCI to procure Bihar8217;s agricultural products, but it never really happened. His proximity to Vajpayee makes him immune to allegations of parochialism and he uses informal access to old friend Laloo Yadav to get the state machinery working in tandem with the railways to push projects. Nitish spends time in Bihar, publicises his achievements through the local media, and even earns the envy of other Central ministers by projecting himself as a credible challenger to Rabri8217;s throne.

l C P Thakur, Minister for Small-Scale Industries
Dr Do-a-little

AS health minister, he initiated a project to eradicate Kalajar, a highly fatal fever prevalent in North Bihar. He also tried to expand the medical training facilities in Bihar, with limited success, because of the state government8217;s alleged lack of enthusiasm. He was one of the principal lobbyists for the inclusion of Maithili language in the eighth Schedule, which has now promised by the prime minister. Thakur approved construction of the Ashok Memorial Hospital in Patna and a trauma centre in Vikram and extended availability of CGHS services. He got the Union Urban Development ministry to approve the building of an institution on the lines of Delhi8217;s Habitat Centre in Patna, but the Thakur says the state8217;s failure to provide land grounded the project even before it began.

l RAJIV PRATAP RUDY, Minister for Civil Aviation
Talking his way out of it

THE good communicator that he is, Rudy has all of five pages of achievements ready on demand. In roads, power, health and education, the minister claims to have put in significant effort for development of his constituency Chapra and, as a spillover, of adjoining parts in Bihar. He had funds allotted for upgrading the Chapra-Reva road NH-102A and Chapra-Hajipur NH-19 roads, fully utilised the MPLAD to buy 11 ambulances for local NGOs and constructed 400 school buildings. Rudy has also taken steps to re-open the oldest sugar mill of the country at Marhowara, which shut down in 1996.

l SHATRUGHAN SINHA, Minister for Shipping
Act no longer

IN Bollywood, his calling card was the Bihari Babu act. In the power chair, he says his ministry is studying 12 schemes submitted by the state government for development of inland navigation. Cargo vessels between Raj Mahal and Patna will be started shortly. As health minister earlier, he recast the Mahavir Cancer Institute in Patna as a regional cancer institute.

l DIGVIJAY SINGH, Minister of State for External Affairs
I, me, mine

Digvijay Singh, the Rajput who nationally networked his caste brothers across parties and climbed the political ladder, has not indulged himself much in state politics. Repeated requests to his office on his contributions to Bihar met with silence.

l RAVI SHANKAR PRASAD, Minister for Information and Broadcasting
Mine of promises

AS Coal and Mines Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad got the Geological Survey of India to identify granite mining potential in six Bihar portfolios. Soon thereafter, he lost the portfolio; that was the end of project. As Law Minister, he initiated moves to start a National Law School in Patna; the efforts failed, he says, because the state never reciprocated his interest.

As I038;B Minister, Prasad wants to usher in a radio revolution in the state. He has promised new FM stations in Gaya, Motihari, Banka and Madhubani, an additional metro channel in Patna and wider reach for DD Two. Bihar waits, but not too anxiously, for the Rs 26-crore plans to materialise.

l SHAHNAWAZ HUSSAIN, Minister for Textiles
Cutting his cloth

THE only Muslim minister of the BJP, Hussain has a larger responsibility than simply representing his constituency, the predominantly Muslim Kishangunj. Though, truth to tell, he hasn8217;t done too badly by Bihar. He ensured international status for Gaya airport, increased its passenger handling capacity and put it on the Bangkok-Colombo Buddhist pilgrimage route. Haj pilgrims, too, can fly directly to Saudi Arabia from Bihar, thanks to Hussain. Patna airport8217;s runway is being modified to accommodate big aircraft. As Textiles Minister, he says, reviving the ailing jute industry in Bihar will be his priority.

l SANJAY PASWAN, Minister of State for HRD
Waiting in the wings

SANJAY Paswan doesn8217;t possess the clout required to make an impact. But during his tenure at the communications ministry, he says, he saw WLL and new exchanges increase connectivity in rural Bihar. As minister for Social Justice and Empowerment, Paswan launched two education centres for the disabled in Samastipur and Nawada, filled primary teachers8217; vacancies in backward areas and began a scheme for giving free books to Dalits and tribals.

l SHARAD YADAV, Minister for Food and Consumer Affairs
Surrogate son

FOR Sharad Yadav, Bihar is adopted land: He hails from Madhya Pradesh, but has based himself in Bihar for the last two decades. As Civil Aviation Minister, he began what Shahnawaz finished: giving international status to Gaya airport. As the Food and Consumer Affairs minister, he expanded storage facility by establishing 23 godowns and increased FCI procurement. A cold storage was set up in Madhepura, his constituency, where he spun a surprise of sorts by defeating Laloo Yadav in the last elections.