From rat meat to radio sets: Bihar officials busy 'ideating'

Patna: The rather long spell of political chill may have left administration in Bihar in a quandary, but it certainly has not allowed ‘ideas’ – bizarre or otherwise – to go into deep freeze in the state. Bureaucrats, with some encouragement from their political masters, are cooking them up in impressive frequency to keep everyone interested. [caption id=“attachment_1349449” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters[/caption] The latest among these ‘idea smiths’ making the ripples is Arvind Kumar Singh, a Bihar administrative service officer promoted to the IAS cadre in 2009. He has been painting towns in new colours. The latest one to get a fresh coat of paint is Bhabua, the district headquarter town of Kaimur. The initiative kicked off soon after Singh took over as the district magistrate last year. In September last, he called a meeting of local people’s representatives, prominent citizens and media persons at which he put forward his proposal. The purpose, he said, was to give a new identity to the town. The whole town wears a green look now. “The city has got a new identity now. The image makeover will not only create an atmosphere of development and promote communal harmony but will also quite significantly add to people’s economy as more tourists will arrive in Bhabua attracted to its brand new look,” Singh told the Firstpost. But why green and no other colour? According to him, the colour is associated with greenery and it symbolizes lush green fields around the town. When asked whether they were happy, the locals said they were still wondering what it is all about. Officials believe the effort would earn the town a place in the Limca Book of Records. Earlier in 2006, Aurangabad—a crime-infested town some 150 km east of Bhabua—had been painted ‘pink’. The credit in this case too goes to Singh. He wanted a better Pink City than the one in Jaipur in Rajasthan. “Pink symbolizes good mood and has soothing effect on people’s mind, and hence I suggested that the town be painted in that colour. The man succeeding him did not share his enthusiasm for colours and his project was left half-way. However, he is not alone in thinking up new ideas. One of them who deserves mention is Bihar’s director general of police Abhayanand who came with the idea of melting the seized illegal weapons of criminals stored in police ‘malkhana’ (storerooms) to make farming and gardening tools. Soon after he proposed this idea in 2011, the policemen in the state began carrying the seized arms to blacksmiths and getting them converted into faming tools. The ‘idea’ was abandoned soon. Not long ago, the Patna Municipal Corporation authorities employed furiously-clapping eunuchs to collect outstanding municipal taxes from the defaulters. Similarly, another official, posted as the secretary to the social welfare department came up with the idea of selling rat meat at prominent city hotels as well as roadside dhabas. He also promoted rat meat among the poor saying it contains rich protein content. He contended that such meat will help fight food crisis in the world. Another senior official hung what he called the ‘Jehangiri bell’ outside his official resident to make the people in distress meet him as and when they desires and get immediate attention of their problems. The leaders in the ruling JD(U), too, have indulged in ‘ideas’. Recently, the state government began distributing radio sets among the Dalit villagers to help them “drown tiredness caused by the day’s hard labour and everyday worries in music” whereas as the social welfare department announced to give Re 1 coin to the dalit students on daily basis to improve their attendance in schools. Surely, Bihar is not lacking in ideas, it only needs a few good ones.