BIHAR

CM Nitish Kumar held a meeting to review crop losses due to heavy rainfall in the state. Senior officials from Disaster Management, Resources“>Water Resources and Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture departments attended the meeting. The CM instructed the officials to conduct fresh review of estimates of crop losses due to heavy rainfall over the last 2-3 days. Nitish said floods happened in different areas of the state in four phases due to continuous rainfall over the last 4-5 months. He said compensation is being paid to farmers for crop losses up to October 15. He also instructed them to complete the construction of embankments.

The city is entitled to get Rs1,000 crore over a period of five years from the Centre as well as the as its share for the redevelopment of selected areas with smart civic facilities. The Centre, however, has given two years extension for completion of the projects.
The six completed projects include a mega screen (75x42ft) installed at Gandhi Maidan at the cost of around Rs7 crore, rejuvenation of Adalatganj pond, remodelling of 1.25-km-long Beerchand Patel Path, wall art or painting for social awareness, integrated solid Waste Management system and integrated control and command centre (ICCC).

According to PSCL officials, work would begin soon on more projects as many of them were in the final stages of the bidding process. The bidding has been issued for almost 40 projects while 31 are on work order stage.

Reiterating his demand for a caste-based census in the country, Nitish saidBiharassembly had unanimously passed a resolution on February 18, 2019 and again on February 27, 2020, seeking caste-wise enumeration of Population. He said both the resolutions were sent to the Centre with a request to hold caste-wise enumeration.

Nitish also pointed out that the socio-economic caste census (SECC) was conducted in the country after 2010. As the SECC was not conducted properly, no meaningful result came out of it. The SECCs report was prepared in 2013, but it was never published or put in public domain. The caste-based census must be conducted once so that people could be aware of the population of poor families (except SC/ ST). Once a caste-based census is conducted, people and planners would know the accurate population of any specific caste, theCMsaid.

Bihars animal husbandry department has proposed a subsidy scheme to promote cattle farming of indigenous breeds.

The scheme envisages a subsidy of up to 75% of the cost of cowshed installation, purchase of cattle and farming management. The subsidy will be offered on purchase of Sahiwal, Gyr and Tharparkar breed of cows in the units of two, four, 15 and 20 cows.

Currently, the subsidy scheme is available only for cross-breeds cows and buffaloes. This year, we have allocated40 crore in the annual budget for promoting cattle farming of indigenous breeds. The department has proposed to offer subsidy to around 5,500 beneficiaries under the scheme, said the minister.

With a view to ensuring regular classes and enforcing discipline among the students, the has decided to appoint regularheadmastersin all the schools.

The minister also pointed out that the government had decided to set up at least one +2 school in every panchayat with a view to promoting Education, especially among girls, in rural areas.
Meanwhile, the Bihar State Higher Education Council (BSHEC) has constituted four committees that can suggest ways for bringing the much-needed reforms to ensure qualitative improvement in higher education. According to a notification issued by the education department on Monday, BSHECs vice-chairman, Kameshwar Jha, has been authorized to coordinate the activities of the committees and ensure implementation of their recommendations.

The academic reforms committee will help prepare the states higher education plan and provide inputs to the council for smooth functioning of universities and research institutions. It will also undertake a comprehensive study on the states higher education system and submit an annual report for its improvement. Besides, it will suggest measures for implementation of the semester and choice-based credit systems. The NAAC committee will assess the baseline of all the institutions of higher education in the state and ensure their assessment and accreditation. The quality assurance committee, on the other hand, will suggest steps for stimulating the academic Environment for improvement in Learning and research. The fourth committee will suggest policy measures and prepare the road map for implementation of the NEP.

In a unique initiative, the state Education department has introduced the concept of Nutrition garden or nutri garden in some of the government schools. The move is aimed at preventing Malnutrition among children, sensitizing them about the importance of healthy food and getting them connected to nature.

Under the scheme, students grow vegetables, use the organic waste from theirmidday mealkitchen to make vermicompost and also learn about nutrient values of different vegetables and fruits practically. The scheme, implemented under Ankuran Pariyojana by education department’s directorate of midday meal and Unicef, had started on a pilot basis in 40 schools in two districts – Purnia and Sitamarhi – last year. The main motive was preventing malnutrition among children coming from economically poor backgrounds.

Citing the data of National Family Health Survey-5 (NFHS-5) and Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey (CNNS 2016-18), an official said the nutritional status of children and adolescents in the state was not encouraging.

For instance, as per NHFS-5, stunting is prevalent among 42.9% of under-five children and 22.9% of them were suffering from wasting. The same survey also revealed that 69.4% are anaemic in the state. Even the adolescents had nutrition issues. As per CNNS data, malnutrition was found in one out of two adolescents between the age group of 10 to 19 years.

The state cabinet on Wednesday gave clearance to the payment of financial incentives to three companies on their combined private capital worth Rs 216.90 crore in three separate units for ethanol production, Food Processing, and a rice mill.

Messers Magadh Sugar and Energy Limited (a unit of Bharat Sugar Mills) will get a financial incentive on investment of Rs 133.25 crore for establishing an ethanol plant with a production capacity of 75 kilolitres per day at Bucheya in the Sidhwalia block of Gopalganj district. The Plants capacity expansion potential is to the tune of 100 kilolitres per day.

The cabinet approved the SC\ST welfare department’s proposal for the payment of Rs 11.43 crore in 2021-22 fiscal for a 720-bed residential school at Pirpainti in Bhagalpur for boys and girls. The school proposed in 2017-18 was under construction for Rs 34.83 crore, which has been revised to Rs 46.24 crore.

Similarly, Rs 16.55 crore will be paid for the additional expenditure in 2021-22 on the construction of 720-bed state Ambedkar residential school for boys at Jhapaha in Muzaffarpur district.

A latest report of the ministry of Education describing Bihar with the lowest Literacy rate in the country has raised concern over the poor state of education in the state that produces good number of Ias officers and IITians every year with many of them cracking the exams with self-study only.

Academicians, experts and officials have blamed the nearly ‘devastated’ primary education for the sorry state of affairs. They said the recruitment of schoolteachers on contract without caring for the talent has further aggravated the problem.

“Primary education was once in a good shape in the state, but now it has got destroyed, thanks to the introduction of contract system in TEACHING jobs. How can we get good teachers if the higher education remains in bad shape. If we can’t get good teachers, then primary education will remain in bad shape,” said Prof DM Diwakar, former director at the AN Sinha Institute of Social Studies.
He said the government institutions are the source of education for 90% of the Population, but the is bringing private universities.

Stating that the state government was quite serious towards improving the level of education in the state, the minister said the highest allocation (22%) of funds in this year’s budget is for education while chief minister Nitish Kumar has announced to increase it further by 4%.
According to the latest report of the Bihar Economic Survey, dropout is a major problem and it is pervasive in all the stages of education. Reacting on this, the minister said the education department has launched many initiatives such as bag-less Saturday to motivate schoolchildren towards education and to improve enrolments in schools, the government is quite serious towards improving the level of education in the state though it will take time. “Ek din me to sab thik nahin hoga na!”, he remarked.

The emergency response support system (ERSS), which runs theDial 112 service of Bihar Police, has so far provided assistance to 1.85 lakh people under different categories in the last eight months.

According to the data provided by theBihar police, about 55,000 calls are received on the emergency number daily, out of which 1,000 -1500 are registered and action is taken on them. Earlier, the number of such calls was only 400. The had launched the number (112) to provide a single point of contact for people, seeking assistance from police, fire and ambulance Services on July 6 last year.

BiharCMNitish Kumar said his government was committed to conductcaste-based censusin the state, but he wanted to take Consent of all before taking a formal decision to begin thecaste-wise headcount.

He also hinted that the process for the caste-census in the state could begin after the end of the ongoing assembly polls in five states and the forthcoming Budget session in Bihar.

The CM also said that the caste census would enable the State Government to work for the development of various sections.

Responding to a query regarding the demand for inclusion of Bhojpuri language in the syllabus of primary Education in Bihar, the CM said the states education department would look into the issue. Bhojpuri is the language of not only Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand, but it is spoken in many other areas. It has international importance. Whatever happened with Bhojpuri in Jharkhand recently, it was totally wrong, Nitish said.