Cool Bihari

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Indigo starts its operations in Bihar

IndiGo Airlines has formally announced its arrival in Patna. Its services would be launched from July 4, connecting Patna with Mumbai and Bangalore as well as Kolkata, Lucknow and Delhi.The absence of direct air connectivity for Bangalore and Mumbai was causing hardship, undue financial stress and discomfort to Bihari professionals and students who desperately needed this connectivity.

I seriously hope that this flight connectivity will bring much needed relief to many of us who have been paying for double tickets to reach Patna due to lack of single ticket travel option upto Patna. We would end up paying for tickets to Delhi or Kolkata due to lack of a single flight with Patna as end destination.

While the Bangalore flight from Patna would go via Kolkata, that to Mumbai via Lucknow and Delhi. The Patna-Bangalore flight will take off at 6.20 pm and, after hopping at Kolkata, would reach Bangalore at 10.35 pm. The Bangalore-Patna flight will leave Bangalore at 6.50 am to reach Patna at 11.05 am, after hopping at Kolkata.

The Patna-Mumbai flight would leave Patna at 11.35 am and, after hopping at Lucknow and Delhi, would reach Mumbai at 4.50 pm. The Mumbai-Patna flight, on the other hand, would leave Mumbai at 12.20 pm and would reach Patna via Delhi and Lucknow at 5.50 pm.

Labels: Airlines, Bangalore, Bihar 2.0, Indigo, Infrastructure, Mumbai

Posted by Ajit Chouhan at 8:52 AM | Permalink | Comments

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

E-governance in Rural Bihar

Bihar govt. has taken a laudable initiative to initiate the e-governance project in all its 8,479 panchayats at a cost of INR 252 million.

The proposal that was approved last week at a state cabinet meeting in Patna aims at setting up a panchayat information centres or panchayat portals called Vasudha Kendras that will enable villagers to connect with the outside world and provide affordable and easy access to information about the government and its policies.

These Vasudha Kendras would further be connected to all state departments through the Internet and the government will provide computers and Internet connections at the panchayat level centre. According to the plan, eight government departments, including the chief minister secretariat, will be linked to the State-wide Area Network (SWAN).

The project aims at establishing direct contact with villagers and making the functioning of the government more transparent.

According to reports, the project would be developed by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) along with the Bihar State Electronics Development Corporation, a state-owned IT body, while Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) will monitor the implementation.The state had provided top administrative officials and ministers with laptops as part of its e-Governance initiative only recently. Besides, it has also connected all its 38 district headquarters through video-conferencing link.

Initiatives like these definitely give more credibility to the idea of Bihar 2.0 and if executed well it bring about lot of ground level changes at the local level . One of the challenges which Bihar is facing today is that of proper governance at micro levels like panchyats and small districts. Govt funds and other incentives to boost employment opportunities and income levels in these villages have proved to be an execution nightmare due to inefficiencies existing in the current structure. The advent of e-governance will surely improve things at ground level at it will allow govt officials to keep closer watch on the project implementation and execution of ideas at grassroots levels.

Labels: Bihar 2.0, Bihar Govt., Development Projects in Bihar, E-Governance in Bihar, Grassroot Innovation, Infrastructure, Social Entrepreneurs

Posted by Ajit Chouhan at 2:24 PM | Permalink | Comments

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Investments flowing in Bihar

The investment climate in Bihar is continously improving and last few days has some multiple new projects being planned in Bihar.

World bank to launch 73 million $ project in rural Bihar which aims creating opportunities in six distrcits of rural bihar.

Bihar has received proposals for investment worth Rs 400 crore from cement companies like Ambuja Cements and Birla Corporation. Ambuja Cements, one of the top manufacturers, has proposed setting up of a cement grinding unit of one million tonne capacity in Barh at an investment of Rs 138 crore. Birla Corporation, the flagship company of the MP Birla group, has
proposed setting up of a one million tonne grinding unit in Barh. The investment figure is not available.

Apart from these big names, there are others too. Century Plywood, a leading plywood producer, has announced an investment of Rs 119 crore for a one million tonne cement grinding unit in Kahalgaon.

Railways projects worth 15,000 crores to improve the rail service and better connectivity.

Bihar among top ten states to spend on road construction. Bihar is spending nearly 40% of funds, well above the national average, in both repair and highway upgradation.

These investment measures will surely bring new opportunities of employment and improve Bihar's overall economy.

Labels: Bihar 2.0, Development Projects in Bihar, Infrastructure, Investment in Bihar

Posted by Ajit Chouhan at 10:57 PM | Permalink | Comments

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Encouraging News from Bihar

Last week has seen some more positive events in Bihar which augurs really well for the development plans ahead. Technical education in Bihar is set to go global. The University of Edinburgh, UK, and Iowa State University, USA, have offered tie-ups with institutes providing technical education in Bihar.

"The tie-ups will not only open the gates of the world to students of technical institutes in Bihar, but will also add to the credibility of the degree offered here because the brand name of the internationally-acclaimed universities will be added to it and it will have a better visibility in the employment market," remarked science and technology department commissioner Ajay Kumar Thakur.

The department has been entrusted with the job to process the offers made by the international universities. Prof B Sinha, emeritus professor, Institute of Infrastructure and Environment, School of Engineering and Electronics of the University of Edinburgh, has written a letter to Bihar CM Nitish Kumar expressing the desire to bring a delegation headed by the deputy vice chancellor (international affairs) to meet him.

In another development, Rajendra Sinha, instructor, international business, Des Moines Area Community College, Ankeny, Iowa, USA, has suggested the Bihar CM to visit Iowa along with his officials to discuss the offers made by Iowa State University (ISU). He has suggested discussing the modalities of setting up partnership "to fully operationalise the five engineering colleges and 17 vocational/technical schools in Bihar.

In another news on Infrastructure development the Bihar government has hired the services of a US firm to conduct quality checks of the roads in the state.

The firm M S V International, having expertise in bridge and highway construction, has been contracted for two years for Rs 3.59 crore. It will conduct over 40,000 quality checks, Road Construction Minister Nand Kishore Yadav said on Saturday.

The minister flagged off the Mobile Testing Van (MTV) equipped with state-of-the-art gadgets for testing soil, stone chips, bitumen and other material on Thursday. He said the MSV was fully equipped to submit reports on the quality of roads within 24 hours of collection of the sample .

Labels: Development Projects in Bihar, Education in Bihar, Infrastructure

Posted by Ajit Chouhan at 7:08 PM | Permalink | Comments