PATNA: The Union Budget, presented on Tuesday by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, made a provision of Rs 11,500 crore for harnessing and utilizing the waters of Kosi—a wildly eccentric and course-shifting river known as the “sorrow of Bihar” because of the devastation it causes across a vast swathe in the northern part of the state after flowing in from Nepal.
Sanjay Jha, the working president of JD(U) and former water resources minister of Bihar, rightly noted that it was the first time the problem of floods in Bihar was recognized as a national priority. “This is decisive, and just a beginning,” he said.
The state also received a bounty which seems like good compensation for the short shrift to its insistence on special category status—four expressways, a two-lane bridge over the Ganga, a power plant, airports, and medical colleges.
An industrial node in Gaya, sports infrastructure, and a promise to help the state government access funds from multi-lateral institutions were also announced in the Budget. Apart from this, the development of the Vishnupad temple corridor and Mahabodhi temple corridor in Gaya, and the development of Rajgir and Nalanda were also mentioned.