New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday blamed the “poor state” of education during the RJD rule as a major reason for the large-scale migration from Bihar and lauded the Nitish Kumar-led NDA government for improving the situation and setting the state on a path to progress.
Speaking at the inauguration of a host of education and skilling initiatives for the youth, including several projects for the poll-bound state, Modi took a veiled swipe at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who is often lauded by his party members as ‘Jan Nayak’, an honorific associated with respected OBC leader and former Bihar chief minister Karpoori Thakur.
The people of Bihar should be vigilant to attempts by some to “steal” the honour long associated with Thakur, Modi said, without naming Gandhi.
Thakur was not bestowed the title of Jan Nayak by social media trolls, but it is a reflection of people’s love for him, he added.
The Modi government had honoured the late OBC leader with Bharat Ratna last year.
Praising Chief Minister Kumar, Modi said the Bihar government has taken new resolves for the state’s development and has decided to double the number of people getting employment in the next five years as compared to the last 20 years.
The idea is to ensure that youngsters of Bihar are employed within the state, he said, with the issue of migration gaining in sapience during the ongoing assembly poll campaign.
The current generation of youth, he said, may not be aware of the destruction wreaked on the education system 20-25 years back, he said, targeting the RJD government.
Schools would not open and few recruitments were made, he said, adding that students were forced to leave the state for other cities. This was the real beginning of migration, he said.
It is rather difficult to restore a tree whose roots are rotting, and this was the state of Bihar during the RJD rule, he said, lauding the NDA government in the state for its work to effect a turnaround.
The prime minister said India’s ITIs are not only an important centre for industrial education but also serve as workshops for ‘aatmanirbhar Bharat’. His government, he said, opened 5,000 ITIs in the last decade against 10,000 opened till 2014, he added.
Modi unveiled various youth-focused initiatives worth more than Rs 62,000 crore, with a special emphasis on poll-bound Bihar. He launched PM-SETU (Pradhan Mantri Skilling and Employability Transformation through Upgraded ITIs), a centrally sponsored scheme with an investment of Rs 60,000 crore.
It envisages the upgradation of 1,000 government ITIs in a hub-and-spoke model comprising 200 hub ITIs and 800 spoke ITIs.
Modi launched Bihar’s revamped ‘Mukhyamantri Nishchay Svyam Sahayata Bhatta Yojana’, under which nearly five lakh graduates will receive a monthly allowance of Rs 1,000 each for two years, along with free skill training.
He also launched the redesigned Bihar Student Credit Card Scheme, which will provide interest-free education loans of up to Rs 4 lakh, significantly easing the financial burden of higher education.
The prime minister inaugurated the Jan Nayak Karpoori Thakur Skill University, which has been envisioned to impart industry-oriented courses and vocational education to create a globally competitive workforce.
