Bihar: The canceled tenders, according to Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Chaudhary, are related to the time when the RJD minister was in charge of the engineering and public health departments.
PATNA: On Wednesday, the government of Bihar, led by Nitish Kumar’s National Democratic Alliance (NDA), declared that 350 contracts given by the Public Health and Engineering Department (PHED) during the time when Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) was allied with the Rashtriya Janata Dal will be canceled.
The canceled tenders, valued at ₹826 crore, according to deputy chief minister Samrat Chaudhary, are related to the time frame from August 2022 to January 2024 when Lalit Kumar Yadav, a legislator for Rashtriya Janata Dal, served as the state’s PHED minister in the Nitish Kumar-led Grand Alliance administration.
These agreements deal with the provision of potable water in rural regions.
Following his nomination as deputy chief minister, Bharatiya Janata Party member Chaudhary declared that the administration would examine the work done by the Grand Alliance in departments under the RJD and Congress’s supervision.
Officials stated that during Yadav’s tenure as the PHED minister, the department approved 1,100 contracts totaling ₹4,600 crore. According to a senior source, PHED minister Niraj Kumar Bablu cancelled the 350 contracts pertaining to rural water supply after an investigation revealed that the proper procedures were not followed in these situations. The majority of these initiatives deal with setting up small water supply systems and hand pumps in rural regions.
According to the deputy chief minister, authorities who disregarded the established protocols will likewise face consequences and not be spared.
Out of the 350 cases, Banka district is associated with the greatest number of projects (106), followed by Jamui (73), Lakhisarai (20), Aurangabad (18), and Ara (11).
The termination of contracts signed by the previous government, according to RJD spokesperson Mrityunjay Tiwary, “smacked of a vindictive approach of the Nitish Kumar-led dispensation against RJD leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav.”
“JD(U) and BJP leaders are afraid of Yadav’s increasing popularity. About 7-8 lakh youths were employed as a result of the people-friendly measures the MGB government took, according to Tiwari, who also declared that the RJD would not be intimidated by such actions.
The cabinet secretariat of Bihar requested in February that officials examine the work being done by the departments of health, road construction, urban development, and rural works, all of which were led by RJD ministers in the MGB government.