Sushil Kumar Modi, finance minister of Bihar, said that it would take time for the new administration led by the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to put the economy back on the rails. Modi was in New Delhi to senior party leaders of the Bharatiya Janata party along with the chief minister.
Speaking to journalists, Modi said that out of Rs 5400 crore sanctioned by the Centre only twenty per cent have been utilised so far. " Even if we try our best we would not be able to utilize all the funds meant for the development of the state. We would come out with full budget next year. This would be the first of its sort because Bihar never had a full budget for over two decades.
The state administration spends Rs 1200 crores only disbursing salaries and pension to its workers.
He expressed concern over the growing unemployment in the state and promised to take effective steps to fill up over 1.5 lakh vacancies in various
departments of the state government.
"We have not filled the vacancies of the engineers for many years and this includes senior level posts. Over 5000 sub-inspector posts are lying vacant. Besides that we need another 3000 constables. We would take effective steps to fill this gap," he said.
Bihar has hired the biggest place for the forthcoming Pravasi Bhartiya Divas meet in Hyderabad. "Earlier, Bihar used to participate for the sake of participating. But now we want to make Bihar's presence felt at the Pravasi Bhartiya Divas meet," he announced.
As a first step towards restoring the confidence amongst its senior bureaucrats and government employees, Nitish Kumar held a meeting of the senior IAS and IPS officers from Bihar who are currently posted in Delhi at his residence in New Delhi on Saturday and asked them to return to the state and make their contribution towards the development of Bihar.