No jungle raj in Bihar, development main agenda: Nitish Kumar

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Friday said there was rule of law in Bihar and not 'jungle raj', as his rivals were claiming.

"There is no jungle raj; there is rule of law in Bihar and we have set development as the main agenda since we want to take the state forward," Nitish Kumar said at a function organised by a news channel.

He also said that development was the main agenda of the grand alliance of the Janata Dal-United, Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress in the state assembly polls.

Nitish Kumar denied allegations that 'jungle raj' had returned to the state after he joined hands with Lalu Prasad.

The chief minister said the state had developed in the last 10 years and his government had worked for its development, with justice for all.

"Bihar had its own model of development and now had a positive image in the public mind. It recorded high growth rate and witnessed the development of basic infrastructure to human development in the last one decade," the JD-U leader said.

He said that children in the age group of 6 -14 were brought to school. "There were 12 percent children out of school in 2005, which had now been reduced to 1.72 percent," Nitish Kumar said.

He said the state government stressed mainly on girl education through several schemes like free uniforms and cycle distribution to increase their enrollment in schools.

The chief minister said the power situation too improved in Bihar, with per capita consumption of electricity increasing from 70 kWh in 2005 to 203 kWh in 2015.

"In 2015, the average availability of power in urban areas is 22 to 24 hours and 15 to 16 hours in rural areas," Nitish Kumar said.