 "Nitin Nabin (Photo: X/@NitinNabin)")
Bihar’s Roads and Infrastructure Minister Nitin Nabin first contested the elections when he was just 25, when his father, a well-known figure in Bihar BJP, died suddenly. Now a minister in the state government and a rising star, he was put in charge of organising Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Patna visit during the election campaign. Nabin talks about achievements and challenges in an interview with Aditi Phadnis in Patna. Edited Excerpts.
What was the situation when you first became a minister?
I became minister for roads in 2021. But starting 2006, the Nitish Kumar government had been giving enormous impetus to the roads and infrastructure sector. It got additional support when Narendra Modi formed the government in 2014.
In North Bihar, development had already begun in 2006. But in 2020, we began developing south Bihar in an organised way.
South Bihar had two or three major bottlenecks. For instance, the Mahatma Gandhi Setu on the Kamala river, there was just one bridge on the entire length of the river and this was a major problem, it increased travel time for people living in the area.
The Prime Minister declared that not only should the old bridge be refurbished but a new one should be built. So what was effectively a two-lane road has now become a 10-lane road. The Mahatma Gandhi setu is considered a lifeline between north and south Bihar. That is a big achievement of the government.
In addition, there is a bridge almost every 40-km across the Ganga now. We’ve built around six bridges across the Ganga, there used to be just one. Most of them are either four-lane or six-lane.
If you wanted to go to Begusarai, Rajendra Setu was a major bottleneck. It was a single-lane bridge and for the last 50 years, it was the only source of connectivity with that region. We upgraded that. In addition, two more bridges were built over the last one year to increase the connectivity in that region.
But in Bihar, why do bridges have the tendency to collapse as soon as they are built?
This story is of just one bridge. More accurately, this is a story of how perceptions are built. Just one bridge fell and that too because there was a design fault. We rectified it as soon as we understood what had gone wrong.
Bihar is a land of rivers. Every village has a river, small or big, flowing nearby. The Bihar Rajya Pul Nirman Nigam had become a defunct body by 2005. We revived it in 2006. And today Bihar has more than 3,000 bridges small and big. It is the only state that has developed a Bridges Maintenance Policy about two months ago. I started work on this in 2021 and now the policy is before you.
The same goes for roads. Bihar maintains 13,000 km of roads every year, this is not the figure for new roads, just the maintenance of existing roads. In the same way we have a policy for bridge maintenance. With one example, you cannot rubbish Bihar’s entire rural infrastructure. Everyone who is coming from outside Bihar is struck at the state’s rural road connectivity.
Yes, there is a lot of improvement. But isn’t this national highway-led? Local roads are still in very bad condition.
In the last one year we have focused separately on rural roads. So far rural roads used to be constructed either via Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) or Mukhya Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojana. We have included these - about 1 lakh km – of roads in the roads maintenance policy. And in the coming years, how rural roads should be maintained will be funded and supervised by outlays from the state budget. I concede there is a maintenance challenge. But Bihar’s rural roads were 8000 km in 2005. Today they are 1,28,000 km. So naturally there is a maintenance challenge.
You have been urban development minister as well. At one end of the spectrum is Dharavi. At the other end are slums in Patna and other cities in Bihar.
I have been the Urban Development Minister for a year. I can say that urbanisation has been very poor in Bihar. Urbanisation was 12 per cent and now it is about 16 per cent. This is half the national average. The area of intensive population is just one, Patna.
We are now building satellite cities in nine commissionerate towns. The Kankarbagh area and Patliputra society are the two urban clusters in Patna. We have acquired 2,000 acres in Patna and will build residential colonies.
When towns stretch over larger areas, where there is construction, the rise of such slums and settlements is inevitable. Right now, everyone wants to live in Patna. So this is a problem.
But the allocation we have got this time under the Pradhan Mantri Avas Yojana (PMAY), we have never got before. The sum amounts to about ₹55trillion. Of this, outlay for urban areas is around ₹17trillion.
We are planning vertical buildings and multiplexes to be built via PPP mode. So far in Patna we have built about 28,000 houses already. These figures look small. But it is a beginning. We have developed around five slum clusters into multiplexes.
Wherever you go, while people accept there has been development, the biggest complaint is bribery and corruption.
The system has been checked at many levels. I am not saying everything has improved to the point where it is perfect. But I can say that the government takes a very strong view on this, the CM himself is very tough on this. But I accept that at the lower level all kinds of people spring up who offer all kinds of ‘services’. And I accept that more tough measures on this front are needed.
Currently, one reason why this problem could be elevated is digitisation of land. We are in the process of a big drive in the state for rectification and recording of land titleship. In the coming days land records will be registered online.
In Bihar, maximum disputes or law and order flare ups are on the issue of land. We’re facing problems because those who don’t have papers want to get hold of their papers as soon as possible, eliminating the claims of others. Officials take advantage of this. And then there’s the issue of support this kind official gets from the chain of command. If this problem looks elevated at present, it is because of the ongoing digitisation of land records. But we’ll fix this too. This is not a problem but a genuine issue people face that we must address. The process of digitisation should finish by June.
