Bihar has now Bihar Development and Investment Council (BDIC) and Bihar Foundation to help develop Bihar.

As reported, “Headed by the Chief Minister, the BDIC will comprise top shots from the India Inc, including Anand Mahindra of Mahindra and Mahindra, Sunil Bharti Mittal of Bharti Telecom, Kumar Mangalam Birla, B Muthuram (MD of Tata Steel) Rajshri Pathy of Rajshri Sugar and Sanjeev Goenka. Deputy chairman of State Planning Board NK Singh will be its deputy chairman and former economic advisor of the Government of India Shankar Acharya a prominent member.”

It is surprising and unfortunate that CM’s council (BDIC) doesn’t include any IT biggies. No state today can think of significant development without IT/ ITeS/ BPO/ESO/KPO. It is the need of hour. With huge number younger people of the state studying outside the state preparing for the sector, the main input for the sector that is the major deciding factor, is readily available. At least after education, the young men could have come to the cities of the state and work there. It could have as elsewhere changed the economy of the cities. It can bring out the potential of intelligent Biharis. I don’t know if CM or his men didn’t try to contact any of them or they didn’t agree .I further fail to understand why the government is not taking lessons form even smaller places such Bhuwaneswar, Bhopal, Mohali, Jaipur, and Kochi are developing fast as IT centers. IT sector doesn’t need much investment too. However, the government must have to ensure the infrastructure necessary for IT and the law and order around the location.

Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi heads ‘Bihar Foundation’ that aims “to bring all Biharis settled in different parts of the world to partner in their state’s endeavour to develop.” I wish the government opened ‘Assistance Center for NRBs’ that can help them in the way ‘your man in India’ does. Some one from Mauritius approached me to know a place in Rohtas that was the place from where her ancestors went to Mauritius. I tried my best but I could not. I am sure if there was a center for NRB, she could have got the information.

I shall also wish BDIC and Bihar Foundation to have its websites that are regularly updated and queries answered. Unfortunately, as per the Bihar government website, none of the ministers except for the CM and DCM have e-mail address so that people can contact them. But the worse is that even the CM and DCM do never acknowledge even with one that can be done automatically.

Surprisingly, CM and his party JD (U) chief, Sarad Yadav have outright opposed the policy of SEZs and closed the door for the aspirant investors in SEZs. It would have been better to remain non-committal for CM as shrewd statesman. This has unnecessarily made them anti-investors. CM should leave the subject open for discussion at BDIC.

CM and DCM must encourage ‘one education hub’ at the headquarters of every district for higher secondary and professional education, and see that all the existing professional colleges of engineering, medicines and sciences compete in quality with the best in India. This will lay foundation for bringing in BPO and enterprises in high-end knowledge sector. Perhaps, Bihar Foundation can help accelerating the knowledge sector. The story of the efforts of Ravi Verma, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur at a small town of Katihar is precursor of the things to come. Verma’s Telecommand, started in Dec, 2005, provides IT consulting and support to both public and private sectors in Sacramento county and wider northern California areas. Verma, in his 30’s, is proud of running a successful software development centre in Katihar. Verma has hired software engineers belonging to the town who had gone to cities like Bangalore and Mumbai in search of work. Bihar can move forward only with such an innovative entrepreneurships of NRBs.