Bihar Current Affairs March, April & May 2022
■ Monthly Current Affairs
■The trial of Bihar government’s ambitious project Ganga Udvah Pariyojana (गंगा_उदवह_परियोजना) of transporting the water of river Ganga from Mokama's Hathidah to Nawada through 190 km pipeline was successful.
With the completion of this project, all the people in the cities of Gaya, Bodh Gaya, Rajgir and Nawada will get pure drinking water. Purification of water will be done at treatment plants at Ghora Katora in Rajgir, Motnaje in Nawada and Manpur in Gaya.
This project comes under the Jal Jeevan Hariyali Abhiyan. The budget for the first phase of this scheme is ₹2836 crore and will provide 43 MCM (million cubic meters) of water to Gaya and seven MCM of water to Rajgir.
■ The Sambal scheme operated under the CM Divyangjan Empowerment Student Scheme, the Bihar cabinet has approved the distribution of 10,000 battery-operated tricycles (from ALIMCO) meant for the Divyang students and has sanctioned the expenditure of ₹42 crores for this purpose.
Beneficiary: Differently-abled students studying in graduation and above.
Eligibility:
- Locomotor disabled students whose residence is 3Km or more from the college or university campus located within the state
- Locomotor disabled persons who do employment in Bihar for self-reliance and is the earning member of the family and their place of residence is 3Km or more from the place of work.
- The beneficiary must be a permanent resident of Bihar and have a domicile in Bihar
- Annual family income not exceeding ₹2 lakh
- Age 18 years or above
- Disability percentage- Minimum 60% locomotor disability
■ Bihar government has begun the process to
give Petroleum Exploration License (PEL) to
assess the presence of oil reserves in Samastipur
and Buxar districts.
Earlier, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) Limited has
applied for the grant of PELs for Samastipur and Buxar for oil exploration and
production under the Open Acreage Licensing Policy
(OALP).
ONGC claimed
308.32 km2 area of Ganga basin in Samastipur district and 52.1 km2
area in the basin of Ganga River Buxar district may have oil fields.
■ Bihar government has decided to
give permission for exploration of the country's
largest gold reserve in Jamui district.
Union Minister of Mines Pralhad
Joshi had last year informed the Lok Sabha that Bihar holds the highest share
of India's gold reserves. In a written reply, he had said that Bihar has
222.885 million tonnes of gold metal, which amounts to 44% of the total gold
reserves in the country. (Note: These are not Geological Survey of India (GSI)
reports as mentioned by few media houses)
■ CM Nitish
Kumar has asked officials to develop the Karkatgarh
waterfall as an important destination
for eco-tourism in the state.
Karkatgarh
waterfall is a multi-tiered waterfall situated at Karkatgarh Village, in the Kaimur Range, in Bihar’s Kaimur district on the Karmanasa
River. Around 75 crocodiles were counted in the waterfall in 2016
suggesting that it is a natural habitat of the
crocodiles. Bihar Government is also developing it as a crocodile
conservation reserve.
■ Kakolat waterfall of
Bihar’s Nawada district, will get a
facelift with additional amenities at an estimated cost of ₹23 crores. The
height of this waterfall is about 150 -160 feet,
from the ground level.
■ The Bihar cabinet has decided
to implement Chief Minister Digital Health Scheme in a phased manner in the next five years. For the FY- 2022-23 to 2026-27, ₹ 300 Crore has been approved.
■ An Memorandum Of Understanding
(MoU) was signed between central undertaking Sutlej
Solar Energy Vidyut Nigam Limited (SEVNL) and
Bihar State Power Holding Company Limited (BSPHCL),
North Bihar Power Distribution Company Limited
(NBPDCL) and South Bihar Power
Distribution Company Limited (SBPDCL) for installation of solar power
plants at Banka and Jamui with a combined production capacity of 200 MW.
As per the MoU, SEVNL will
install 200MW solar power plant,
including a 75MW solar power plant at Banka and a 125 MW solar power plant at Jamui.
As per the MoU, the two plants will be ready for production by December 2023.
The promotion of solar energy in
the state is part of Jal Jeevan Hariyali (JJH) campaign and the Seven Resolves
Programme of the state government.
■ Bihar
State Power Generation Company Limited is
involved in the installation of solar power plants
at Kajra (250 MW)
in Lakhisarai district and Pirpainty (200 MW) in
Bhagalpur.
■ Bihar becomes the first State in the country to implement Warehouse Management System (WMS) in all its warehouses.
E-warehousing
management has been made to automate
the entire activities of the warehouses in a centralized manner.
■ As per the Sample Registration System (SRS) for the year 2020, Bihar observed
the highest Birth Rate at 25.5, whereas Andaman
and Nicobar has the lowest Birth rate of 10.8.
The birth rate at all India level
has declined drastically over the last
five decades from 36.9 in 1971 to 19.5 in 2020.
Few other stats from this report:
• Birth Rate is the
number of live births per thousand
population in a given region and year.
• Death rate is the
number of deaths per thousand population in a given region and time period.
• Natural Growth rate is the
difference between Birth rate and Death rate.
• Infant Mortality Rate is defined
as the infant deaths (less than one year) per thousand live births in a given
time period and for a given region.
■ Hrithik Anand, resident of Hajipur (Bihar) won the first Gold medal for India in the mixed team event of badminton at the 24th Summer Deaflympics (Deaf Olympics) held in Brazil by defeating Japan.
■ Nishi
Kumari from Bihar, won the Bronze medal in the 4th All India Junior Open Javelin Throw Championship 2022 organized by Athletics Federation of India at JRD
Sports Complex Jamshedpur.
■ Renowned lyricist of Maithili, Rabindranath
Thakur passed away. He was popularly
known as Abhinav Vidyapati.
■ Renu Paswan of Muzaffarpur was made chairperson
of the G-100 group,
becoming one of the most influential women from around the world.
■ CM Nitish Kumar lay the foundation stone and launched commencement of construction works for the proposed buildings of the Bihar Animal Science University (BASU) in the university campus in Patna. The proposed buildings would be constructed at the cost of ₹889.26 crores.
The BASU was established in 2016
through the Bihar Animal Sciences University Act, 2016. The university became
operational in June 2017 with the appointment of its first vice-chancellor Dr
Rameshwar Singh.
■ The data of Bihar’s first waterbird census conducted in February 2022 by the Department of Environment, Forest and Climate Change of Bihar and monitored by London-based Birdlife International,
has been recently released by the Government of Bihar.
The census found 202 species of birds of both domestic and
migratory nature are inhabiting the wetlands across the state. The 202 bird
species found in the wetlands include 80 living on water, 21 water-dependent
ones, and 101 living close to the wetlands. The total number of birds
enumerated among these species during the census was 45,173.
Bihar has 133 big and over 17,000 small wetlands that lend to its rich biodiversity and
are home to varieties of plants, birds, animals and insects. The major wetlands
like the Gogabil Lake and bird conservation reserve in Katihar, Vikramshila wetlands in
Bhagalpur, Indrapuri
Barrage in Rohtas, Nagi-Nakti bird sanctuary in Jamui and Odhni Dam in Banka were included in the census.
■ CM Nitish Kumar reached Veerpur in Supaul
district and inspected the work done on the Physical
Modelling Centre (PMC) and East Kosi
Embankment.
This is the India's second Physical
Modelling Centre (PMC) that is being
set up at Veerpur of Bihar’s Supaul district by the Water
Resource Department (WRD) for
carrying out research on flood control and their related wings. The
construction cost of this project is about ₹108 crores.
The need for this centre was
realised in Bihar after the Kusha tragedy in 2008 to
study the trend of flood erosion in Kosi,
as well as other subsidiary rivers of the state.
■ The Bihar
State Power Holding Company Limited (BSPHCL)
has entered into an agreement with the Solar
Energy Corporation of India (SECI) for 210 megawatt (MW) renewable energy with assured peak to ensure 24x7 green power supply
to identified areas. Initially Rajgir, Bodh Gaya and parts of Patna (Bihar
Museum, Vidhan Sabha, Patna High Court and Vidyut Bhawan) are targeted to get
green energy.
With this agreement with SECI
will replace about 700 million units per year of conventional energy with green
power which in turn will reduce CO2 emission by about 630 million
tonne per annum. The average cost of green power will be ₹4.03 per kilowatt.
■ Buddha Samyak Darshan Museum and Buddha Smriti Stupa are being built in Vaishali at a cost of ₹320 crores.
■ A Cocoon bank built at a cost of about ₹4.89 crores was inaugurated in the Banka district.
Katihar secured delta score of 3.705 and a comprehensive score of 55.9 on different
parameters of development. Gaya and Muzaffarpur, on the other hand, secured
delta scores of 3.405 and 3.112 and overall scores of 48 and 52.5,
respectively.
Total four
districts from Bihar have secured the top 10 positions.
■ CM Nitish
Kumar on 30
April 2022, inaugurated the country’s
first greenfield Grain-Based Ethanol Plant at
Ganeshpur near Parora in the Purnia district.
The plant has been set up by Eastern India Biofuels Private Limited at a cost of ₹105 crore.
Bihar is the first state to have its own ethanol policy, called Ethanol Production Promotion Policy, 2021.
Spread over 15 acres of land,
the plant is set-up with the latest technology using a zero waste discharge
mechanism. The ethanol manufactured will be supplied to oil marketing companies
for blending into petrol and diesel. About 20% ethanol could be blended into
fuel, resulting in reduction of fuel prices. The by-product of the ethanol will
be used as fodder for animals.
In Bihar, 17 ethanol production plants are being set up, which is likely to produce 35 crore
litres of the fuel every year by using sugarcane,
molasses, maize and broken rice. Purnia, Katihar, Araria and
Kishanganj districts, known as Seemanchal region, account for 80% of the total
maize produced in Bihar. Besides Purnea, ethanol plants are being set up in
Muzaffarpur, Bhojpur, Nalanda, Buxar, Madhubani, Begusarai, Gopalganj, East
Champaran, and Bhagalpur.
■ In a major boost to private
investment in the state, CM Nitish Kumar and Industry Minister on 15 April
2022, inaugurated arguably the largest Pepsi
bottling plant in the eastern region
on the Industrial Growth Centre premises in Barauni’s
Asurari, worth ₹550 crore.
Varun
Beverages Limited (VBL) has established the bottling unit, which has
been built over an area of more than 50 acres.
■ In a communique released by the
state Information and Public Relations Department (IPRD), Bihar along with four
other states viz., Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu is now
part of the five-state club that recorded budgetary expenditure of more than ₹2 lakh crore during
2021-22 fiscal year.
■ Bihar School Examination
Board (BSEB) chairman Anand Kishor has been selected for the Prime
Minister’s award for excellence in public administration, 2020, in
recognition of his “multiple innovation and extensive reforms in examination
systems and processes in BSEB”.
■ The education department of
Bihar is going to launch 'Chhak 2.0’ for
around 22 lakh children enrolled in the first class of government schools in the 2022-23 session.
The school readiness programme ‘Chhak’
is the vision of Kilkari. In collaboration with UNICEF, a 24-day
learning module was created and from 2018
to the pre-Corona period, it was run in two districts of Patna and Gaya.
■ India has entered the Guinness Book of World Records by waving 78,220 national flags simultaneously in the Veer Kunwar Singh Vijayotsav event at Jagdishpur,
Bhojpur (Bihar) on 23 April 2022.
■ In a recent report released by
the Bihar Police Headquarters, it has
been told that under the 'Operation Prahar' being conducted to arrest
the violators of the prohibition law along with the accused involved in serious
criminal incidents in the state, the police made 8,859 arrests in
April.
■ Bihar’s second planetarium (after
Patna) is being built in Darbhanga at a
cost of ₹164 crores. The work is being
done by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of Bihar in two
phases.
■ PM Narendra
Modi and his Nepalese counterpart Sher Bahadur Deuba on
2 April 2022, inaugurated the rail service between the two countries. The train
between the two countries will operate from Jaynagar
in Madhubani district, India to
Kurtha in Janakpur,
Nepal.
The 34.90
km-long rail track is the first
section of the rail line between the two countries and was completed at a total
cost of ₹619 crore in 2021. The Jayanagar – Kurtha Railway link has been set up by IRCON under India – Nepal friendship rail project
with finance granted by the Indian government.
Jaynagar-Kurtha section is part
of the 68.72 km Jaynagar-Bijalpura-Bardidas rail link. The rail service between
Jayanagar and Bijalpura in Nepal had been introduced in 1937 by the British,
which was suspended in 2001 after the Nepal floods.
■ Uttar Pradesh Governor
Anandiben Patel presented Lok Nirmala Samman to folk singer Sharda
Sinha. Sharda Sinha is a renowned Indian folk singer and is famous
for her Bhojpuri, Maithili and Magahi folk song. In 2018 she was awarded Padma Bhushan and
in 1991 she also received Padma Shri.
■ Recently, CM Nitish Kumar
inaugurated a three-day long Baba Kewal Dham State
Fair in Indrawara village under Morwa
block of Samastipur. This fair is the biggest
religious fair of Nishad community.
■ East
Champaran has been awarded the “Best District” and Telari
Panchayat of Gaya District in
Bihar has been awarded the “Best Village Panchayat”
in the East Zone category, at the 3rd
National Water Awards in New Delhi presented by the President of India.
East Champaran was awarded for
rejuvenating the 80km stretch of Moti Jheel and Dhanauti river under state’s Jal-Jeevan-Hariyali mission. Telari
panchayat was selected for the award as being a hilly and dry area, the
water infrastructure development there had gone through a difficult process.
Under the pilot project, rainwater harvesting, enriching underground water
table and expanding green cover in about 95 acres of the hilly area were marked
as a revolutionary achievement in the country.
■ The Water
Resources Department of Bihar state
has developed a new system Bihar Embankment Asset
Management System (BEAMS) for
better management of data related to embankments and rivers in the state.
In this, data related to the
quality of rivers and condition of embankments, information about the assets of
the department, facts related to the changing behaviour of rivers, monitoring
of flood protection plans, material available in various stores and information
related to tendering of schemes etc. will be available. This will enable to get
real-time data related to rivers and embankments from anywhere at
any time.
Bihar is one of the most flood prone
States in India, accounting for around 17.2% of the flood prone area of the country and about 76%
of the population in North Bihar lives under the recurring threat of flood
devastation.
■ CM Nitish
Kumar inaugurated the three-day Bihar Diwas function
on 22 March 2022 at Gandhi Maidan in
Patna. The theme for this year is Jal-Jeevan-Hariyali.
Governor Phagu Chauhan was the chief guest on the concluding day of the
event on March 24.
This year marks the 110th anniversary of the state’s foundation, as on this date in 1912, the British carved out Bihar from the Bengal Presidency and announced Patna to be
the capital of the new province.
Environmentalist and India head
of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Atul Bagai on the occasion
said Bihar was 30 years ahead of the country in the sphere of climate
protection and it was striving to achieve net zero
carbon emission by 2040, while India strives to achieve it in 2070.
The ambitious Jal-Jeevan-Hariyali campaign aims to conserve water and increase
the green cover of Bihar, is based on 11 points and implemented in mission mode
across the state. A sum of ₹24,524 crore is planned to be spent on this campaign in a phased
manner.
■ India’s
largest reclining statue (Mahaparinirvana mudra) of Lord Buddha is
being built at Amwan Thokar in Bodh Gaya.
This statue will be the fourth largest in the world in a reclining
posture.
Built by Buddha International Welfare Mission, the statue
will be 100 feet long and 30 feet high.
The construction of the statue began in 2019 and is being made with fiberglass by sculptors from Kolkata. The statue is likely to be open to
devotees and tourists in February 2023.
The idol of Mahaparinirvana mudra
of Lord Buddha is in Kushinagar (Uttar
Pradesh) where he attained his Mahaparinirvana.
■ The Government of India has
approved the setting up of 7 PM Mega Integrated Textile Region and Apparel (PM MITRA)
Parks in Greenfield/Brownfield sites
to develop world-class infrastructure including plug and play facility with an
outlay of ₹4445 Crore for a period of
seven years up to 2027-28.
Inline with this Bihar government
has identified 1,719 acres of land in West Champaran and has submitted a proposal to the Union textiles
ministry to set up a mega hub under the PM MITRA parks scheme.
■ DM Kundan Kumar of West Champaran was honoured by PM Narendra Modi for his innovative solution by establishing a “Navpravartan” Startup Zone at Chanpatia in West Champaran.
This provided a solution to the plight of returnees of COVID-19 who faced grave financial & psychosocial crises and lost their livelihood. The start-up zone has 57 units set up by skilled labourers who returned from different states and it has created employment for more than 1,000 persons.
■ The construction of the world's largest and tallest Ramayana Temple 'Virat Ramayan Mandir' will begin at Kaithwalia in East Champaran.
Ramayana Temple will be built on
a total of 125 acres of land, with a height of 270
feet, which is the highest in the world while its length is 1080
feet and width is 540 feet. This temple will also have the world’s tallest Shivling which
will be 33 feet high and 33 feet in circumference built with 250 metric tonnes
of granite brought from Kanyakumari. The temple will have 12 shikharas.
Patna-based 'Mahavir Mandir Trust', will build this temple for
which land worth more than ₹2.5 crores was donated by Ishtiyaq Ahmad Khan. Ahmedabad-based
architect Piyush Sompura and interior designer Navratna Raghuvanshi have been
taken to prepare the design of the temple construction. The temple is planned
to be constructed by 2027.
■ A test-tube
baby was born through the In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) method at Indira Gandhi
Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS) in
Patna. It is the first case of a test-tube baby born in any
government hospital in Bihar.
■ Bihar has become the first state in the country to introduce the
concept of a dynamic map for villages which will get updated every time land
ownership changes hands.
The state Assembly in December
2021 passed the Bihar Land Mutation Amendment Bill,
2021 which made the mutation of maps
mandatory.
■ NITI
Aayog, in partnership with the Institute of Competitiveness, released
the second edition of the Export Preparedness Index
(EPI) 2021. Gujarat has been
named India’s top State in terms of export preparedness for the second time in
a row.
Bihar, which is categorized under
the landlocked states, has lagged in
exports potential, with its total share in exports accounting for 0.53%. With
an Export Preparedness score of 32.06 Bihar was overall ranked at 22 among 36 States/ UTs.
