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Management institute will be set up in Patna: Nitish

Manas Dasgupta

Says administrative works has already begun, classes to start from next academic year

— Photo: AP

IT'S MY TURN: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar (left) along with Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A), Director, Bakul Dholakia, arrives to deliver a lecture at the IIM-A's Annual International Management Summit in Ahmedabad on Sunday.

AHMEDABAD: An Indian institute of management on the pattern and standard of the existing IIMs will be set up in Patna and is expected to start functioning by the 2007 academic year, the Bihar Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar, said here on Sunday.

Mr Kumar, who was invited by the IIM, Ahmedabad, to address the Confluence 2006 on ``The Challenges and Opportunities in Transforming Bihar as a Vibrant Wealth Creation" and later preside over the concluding ceremony of the four-day congregation of the business schools in Asia, said he had held some preliminary discussions with the IIMA director, Bakul Dholakia, for necessary `advice and guidance' for the setting up of the management institution in Patna.

Mr Kumar said the administrative works for setting up the IIM, Patna, had already started and he was confident that the classes would be started from the next academic year.

The Chief Minister reeled out facts and figures about what his government had done in Bihar in the last one year and planning for the future to bring the State from the present ``most backward" stage to be among the most developed states by 2015.

He reiterated that the Railway Minister, Lalu Prasad was `enjoying the fruits' of what the seeds he had sown during his tenure as the Railway Minister for the turn around of the Indian railways for which he was getting applauds from all quarters.

He said when he took over as the Chief Minister in November, last year, Bihar by all indicators was considered to be the most backward state, in respect of illiteracy, unemployment, social disharmony and the nightmarish law and order situation.

The people believed that Bihar could not change and it would be impossible to develop the State to the level of other most developed states in the country. "But in one year we have shown that Bihar can change and is changing very fast for the better," he claimed.

Mr Kumar said his government's decision to create Special Auxiliary Police (SAP) by recruiting about 5,000 retired army personnel had been appreciated by the Defence Minister. For the people of Bihar, the SAP had become the most popular force and its deployment was being demanded at every place having even minor law and order problem.

Claiming that the law and order situation had improved vastly in the State, where people, particularly women, dreaded to come out of their houses after the night-fall, Mr Kumar said the criminals had been given the clear message that crime did not pay.

He said his government had already received 61 proposals for investments of over Rs 26,000 crores, but needed central co-operation to secure more investments in other sectors where the industries would not come to Bihar unless provided with attractive tax concessions.

Among various other measures being taken by his government, he enumerated the current recruitment of 2.35 lakh teachers to improve the present ration of one teacher to 92 students, and in some cases even 200 students, as against the national average of one teacher per 40 students.

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