After roads and law and order, Bihar is
turning its attention to the health of its children. As part of its
Bihar Divas celebrations, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will Tuesday
launch a mega health scheme targeted at the 3.4 crore children in the
state, officials said.
Under the 'Nayee Peedhi Swasthya Guarantee Karyakram' (New Generation
Health Guarantee Programme), children up to 14 years of age and
adolescent girls will be provided a health card for their medical
check-up and treatment free of cost at government hospitals.
'Soon after inaugurating Bihar Divas at Gandhi Maidan, Nitish Kumar will
begin distributing health cards to children,' an official of the Chief
Minister's Office told IANS.
'This mega health scheme will check malnutrition, anaemia and childhood
reproductive problems,' Principal Health Secretary Amarjit Sinha said.
The government planned to distribute health cards by Oct 2 this year, he added.
However, he admitted that reaching out to all the children was a challenging task.
'Special camps would be organised in government schools and sub-primary health centres to distribute these cards,' he said.
Aware of the power and reach of the internet, Nitish seems keen to use the medium to his advantage as the state goes to the polls in a few months.
He has created his own blog (www.nitishspeaks.blogspot.com) to get connected to the people of the state, including those living outside Bihar.
Here is a preview of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar Blog : "Nitish Speaks"
Nitish posted his maiden article on Thursday on the success of his pet project, Mukhyamantri Balika Cycle Yojna, launched three years ago.
He wrote that the scheme had brought about a real transformation in the field of girls' education and had been fairly successful in arresting the dropout rate in schools.
"Our government spent Rs 174.36 crore in the past three years to make 8.71 lakh schoolgirls proud owners of bicycles which they are using to educate themselves," he wrote.
He insisted that this was not mere statistics: "In Bihar, bicycles have now become a veritable instrument for social change." In an apparent bid to reach out to all sections, Nitish said the scheme did not exclude anybody on the basis of caste, creed or economic background.
"A remarkable aspect of this project is that this has benefited students from all sections of society," he wrote.
Nitish also revealed how he overruled bureaucrats to give money directly to schoolgirls for buying bicycles, instead of floating tenders for bulk purchase.
"I thought that purchase of bicycles through tenders might give rise to corruption in future. Instead, I was in favour of handing over money through cheques directly to the beneficiaries... (to) not only simplify the entire process but also make the scheme transparent." Nitish has found the blog an effective medium in the election year to send out the message about how his government has pursued a policy of all-inclusive growth in the past four-and-a-half years.
"This will be an ideal platform for the chief minister to directly interact with people on the web," BJP MLC and Nitish's close associate Sanjay Jha, who is looking after his blog, said.
Nitish's blog has already evinced interest from netizens.
Though it was launched without any fanfare, it had more than 250 visitors within hours.
"Given the initial response, I am sure it will be a big hit," Jha said. "We have plans to make it bilingual, in both English and Hindi." Nitish seems to have borrowed the idea of blogging from his bête noire Lalu Prasad. The former railway minister had also started his blog which ended up becoming a grievance cell of sorts for train passengers.
