BIHAR

Of the 30,272 wards in villages having contaminated sources of groundwater, as many as 29,180 of them have been provided with safe tap drinking water under the CM Rural Drinking Water Scheme, according to a communique received from the state public Health engineering department (PHED).

The scheme is popularly calledHar Ghar Nal Ka Jal. By corollary, PHED has 96.4% achievement to its credit. The drinking water being supplied to the wards concerned is free from contamination of fluoride, arsenic and iron content beyond the permissible limits.

The department also maintained that the Centre has also conducted a third-party survey of the piped water supply being provided in the villages. According to this survey, 95% of the villages have been getting uninterrupted piped drinking water supply.

As per the Centres survey done with regard to the provision of piped water, most of the habitations have been getting Safe drinking water.

Of the 1.08 lakh human habitations in the state, only 467 still had contaminated water, the central survey report has noted, adding that they included six villages having arsenic contamination and one fluoride, while water available in 460 other habitations had iron content beyond permissible limits.

It has taken five years to make an achievement in this regard, as the wards with contaminated ground water had already been mapped out, but the scheme to provide piped water supply was started by PHED in 2016. Besides, as many as 1,379 wards have been covered under 11 different multi-village piped drinking water supply system projects.

At that point of time, groundwater in 3,791 wards of 11 districts had fluoride contamination, while groundwater in 14 other districts had arsenic poisoning in their 4,742 wards. Groundwater of as many as 21,739 wards in 12 districts had iron content beyond approved limits.

StateBJPvice-presidentRajib Ranjanon Sunday said the Bihar government should enact a law to preventreligious conversionbefore it takes a gigantic form.

They made the oral observation while hearing a petition against forced religious conversion, he added.Ranjan said states like Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Odisha and Chhattisgarh have already enacted their laws against religious conversion, while some other states were contemplating to do it.

Demography of a few parts of the state is also changing, and the agenda ofPopular Front of Indiafor 2047 had mentioned religious conversion as part of its activity, he added.

Preparations were underway to conduct free, fair and peaceful 7th phase of panchayat in 63 blocks spread over 37 districts in the state on November 15.

The state Election Commission (SEC) officials revealed that the process to dispatch EVMs to altogether 12,786 polling booths would start after the Chhath festival. The election results would be announced on November 17.

According to information available from the SEC, 1,05,658 candidates are in the fray for 27,730 posts in this phase. The nomination papers of 694 candidates were cancelled during the scrutiny.

Altogether 99,863 candidates remained in the fray for the posts of ward member, mukhiya, panchayat samiti member, sarpanch, panch and district board member.

A day after the state cabinet approved reduction inBihar Industrial Area Development Authority(BIADA) land lease rates up to 80%, state minister SyedShahnawaz Hussainon Wednesday saidBiharwill now offer abundant industrial land at affordable rates to interested investors.

He said after the transfer of 2,900 acres of land of closed sugar mills by the State Government to BIADA, Bihar has a huge land bank for setting up industries.
As per the state cabinet decision, out of the 54 industrial areas of BIADA, lease rates at 15 places have been reduced by 80%, at 12 places by 60%, in another 12 industrial areas by 40% and at the remaining 15 places by 20%.

Recently,Bihar Textile and Leather Policy, 2022 has been launched in the state and now the decision of BIADA land lease rates reduction in 54 out of the total 74 industrial areas will be a big help in achieving the goal of taking Bihar ahead in the Industrial Sector.

There will be a residential 10+2 school for OBC (otherbackward classes) girls in all the districts ofBihar.

Bihar CMNitish Kumar ordered the government officials to open residential 10+2 schools for the OBC girls in all 38 districts of the state.

These residential schools will be available only for the OBC girls.

While chairing a meeting to review functioning of the Backward Classes (BC) and Extremely Backward Classes (EBC) Welfare department, the CM further asked the officials to expedite construction work of the Jannayak Karpoori Thakur hostels in all those districts where they were in the stage of under-construction. The JKT hostels are allotted to the boys of the EBC category.

The CM also ordered for immediate payment of the remaining amount of the Scholarship / stipend to the beneficiaries of the OBC Post-admission scholarship scheme, the Chief Minister EBC Merit-cum-Means scholarship and the Chief Minister Backward Classes Merit-cum-Means Scholarship.

FormerBiharassembly speaker and veteranCongressleaderSadanand Singhdied here on Wednesday after prolonged illness, party sources said. He was 76.

Singh breathed his last at a hospital here where he had been admitted for more than a month.

An OBC leader in a party which has been associated mostly with the upper castes, he was chosen for the speaker’s chair by the party Leadership in 2000 when it was seeking to reinvent itself by projecting a pro-backward image in alliance with the RJD.

The transport departments proposal to give relief in penalty and interest charged on the owners of different kind of vehicles concerned, if they made payment of road tax and other dues in one instalment, was also cleared. The vehicle owners could not make timely payment of taxes due to the lockdown arising from Covid-19. Similarly, relief will be provided to the owners of the rickety or 15-year-old vehicles, if they decided to end the registration and also dispose of their vehicles.

The cabinet approved the proposal to increase the annual income limit from Rs1.5 lakh to Rs2.5 lakh for the availing of post-matric Scholarship to the students from the backward and extremely backward classes.

The Chanakya National Law University (CNLU) got another feather in its cap when the department for promotion of and internal trade (DPIIT) under the Union ministry of commerce established a chair on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) on its campus.

Formally inaugurating the chair, CNLU vice-chancellor Mridula Mishra hoped that the chair would go a long way in educating the students about the significance of IPR in the academics as well as in trade and industry. She said the chair has been created for promotion of various aspects of trade and industry.