RJD accuses Nitish of ‘total loot’ of legislators’ funds

RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav on Wednesday hit out at Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for his decision to use the Rs 2 crore legislators' development fund for the improvement of the state's health structure.

In a letter to the Chief Minister, he alleged that the state government, instead of helping people of Bihar, is concentrating on "total loot" in the name of improving health infrastructure.

"Corona pandemic started in February last year and the state government was involved in corruption of thousands of crores of rupees in the name of development of health infrastructure. The scam of testing kits, making of quarantine and isolation centres emerged a few months ago.

"After one year of pandemic, the state government failed to provide basic facilities to patients in the second wave of corona. The Health Department has a thousands of crores budget every year which it has failed to expend. CM's Relief Fund is also available with the Bihar government. Why is CM Nitish Kumar not putting details about the expenditure on the health sector in public domain for the last one year," he asked.

"Now, Nitish Kumar wants to take away funds allocated to MLAs and MLCs of the state in the name of the pandemic. I want to make a suggestion that you should also include MPs' funds in the state. There are 39 MPs of the NDA representing Bihar in the parliament.

"Besides, the fund generated from legislators in a tune of Rs 600 crore should be spent in the health structure in the constituencies of MLAs or MLCs. If we allow this fund to merge with the Health Department budget, the chances of corruption is very high. Hence, the MLAs or MLCs should be the signing authority of funds before it is expended in purchasing of medical equipments, life-saving drugs, oxygen concentrators, oxygen cylinders, ventilators, beds at isolation and quarantine centres for the particular areas," Tejashwi Yadav said.

The Nitish Kumar government aiming to generate Rs 600 crore through reducing lagislators's fund of Rs 2 crore allocated to every MLA and MLC. A notification in this regard was issued three days ago.