There are one or more people in Nitish Kumar’s system of governance in Bihar who are making Nitish take such decisions for some specific purpose, which is causing great political loss. It is the job of the leaders of Janata Dal (U) to find out who these people are, what is their purpose and where is their commitment, but it is clearly visible that with one controversial decision after another, the government is giving opportunities to the main opposition party RJD and Prashant Kishore, the third player who is rapidly emerging in Bihar politics. Land survey and installation of smart meters are two such decisions which are not only spoiling Nitish’s vote bank but also increasing resentment towards the government among the common people.
No one is able to understand why the government decided to start the land survey before the elections. This is a very controversial work, due to which disputes have started in every village and every house. People’s problems have increased. People who are outside Bihar are being forced to return to the village and if they do not return, there is a danger that the family members who are in the village can get the land registered in their name. Digital documents of all the land in 45 thousand villages of Bihar are not available and the 12 documents that are being sought in the survey to get the land registered in one’s name are also not available. People are making rounds of offices to get the documents and immense bribery has started. The government has got the map of the land prepared by installing geo tagging equipment in airplanes. According to that map, some people’s land is getting less and some people’s land is getting more. This is increasing disputes among neighbors. Disputes in families are increasing because the genealogy is being made from the grandfather’s time and the grandfather’s sister’s sons and grandsons are coming to claim the land. The people of Bihar have stopped whatever work they have and are engaged in land survey. There is a dispute on this within the government as well and the leaders of the ruling coalition believe that if this is not stopped, the government will sink.
Similarly, the Bihar government has started the work of installing smart pre-paid meters in a vigorous manner. This work is also being done just before the elections. The pace of installing smart meters in Bihar is faster than Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai. There are 1 crore 16 lakh smart meters installed in the whole country, out of which 30 lakh are installed in Bihar alone. People are badly agitated against this. They say that their bills have increased many times in the smart meter and due to it being pre-paid, its recharge is getting over anytime and electricity is getting cut. In most of the villages in Bihar, there are old people left. Their children have gone out to study or earn. It is becoming difficult for old and less educated people to run mobile apps and recharge pre-paid meters. So, a movement has started against it. People have started removing and throwing away the meters and are surrounding the employees of the private company supplying the meters. A movement has started against it in every village, town and city of Bihar. If the government had installed post-paid smart meters, there would not have been so much controversy. But now it is becoming difficult for the government to handle it.