Cool Bihari: Bihar Needs Investment

Prakash Jha is going full steam to support Nitish in building a Brand New Bihar.He has offered to construct a four-lane highway in Bihar - a project no private company wants to execute due to the prevailing poor law and order condition.

‘This is the first time we have received a formal offer to construct roads since Nitish Kumar became chief minister nearly five months ago,’ an official told IANS.

The government is likely to float tenders for a highway between Vaishali and Muzaffarpur districts in north Bihar in May, said an official of the state road construction department.

When a tender was floated for the Rs.4 billion project in 2004, no private bidder applied for it.Government officials admitted that private construction companies were not willing to take up the project due to a perception that Bihar was India’s most lawless state.

Jha’s offer came after Nitish Kumar invited private companies to construct roads on a ‘build, operate and transfer’ (BOT) basis.

Jha has submitted his bid to the government on behalf of a Mumbai-based private company to convert the 47 km Hajipur-Muzaffarpur highway into a four-lane super expressway.

Jha had earlier announced his plan to build several multiplexes in Patna, after the government announced a three-year tax rebate to private investors who set up multiplexes in the state. The government has already allotted land for multiplexes.

In another news the State govt has chalked out a plan to develop Greater Patna on the pattern of National Capital Region (NCR) by including Hajipur, Danapur, Fatuha, and some other neighboring towns for a total of 74,000 acres of land within its range.

The plan under the ambitious Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Development Scheme will involve construction of many new residential subdivisions, shopping centers, hospitals, parks, schools, and playgrounds, among other things, Urban Development Minister Ashwini Kumar Chaubey said adding the Patna Regional Development Authority (PRDA) had already begun the ground work on a detailed master plan.

There are also provisions for converting the areas near Patna Junction including the existing New Market and the old Bankipore Jail into posh shopping malls and multiplexes, Chaubey said.

The minister, however, admitted that the proposed plan to build a Marine Drive type boulevard along the Ganges in Patna had hit some snags as the government was still waiting for the NRIs to step in and invest in the Rs. 500 crore project to turn the dream into a reality.

Bihar needs investment and its time industry and NRI's realise that they can play a very vital role in bridging the gap between the have's and have not's of our society by coming forward and investing in Bihar.

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