As the NDA government in Bihar completes four years in office on Tuesday, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, a bit low after the September bypoll defeat and Khagaria caste massacre, talks to Santosh Singh on his achievements, challenges, social engineering model, OBC and upper caste ire over Mahadalit politics, ties with the BJP and the strained Centre-state relationship. Excerpts:

How do you reflect on your four years in office?

I have just tried to show that Bihar can be governed, and governed well. I had inherited a failed state with zero infrastructure, minimal spending capacity and chaos on the law and order front. Now if people like Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Nandan Nilekani have been praising my efforts, I must have done something good. I am satisfied with the huge road projects and drastic improvement in healthcare and education.

But what went wrong with electricity, the most nagging infrastructural hurdle?

It pains me to answer that the Centre has not been giving us coal linkages to support thermal projects. Now, the Central Water Commission has come out with the directive not to use Ganga basin water for power generation. Is it not a crude joke on us? How can anyone tell us not to use our water? Imagine a state, cursed with floods, is not allowed to use water.

Will this further keep prospective investors at bay?

Yes. In the past four years, we could get only over Rs 1,000-crore investment, mostly in sugar and agro-processing sectors. For sugar, the Centre says that ethanol cannot be produced directly. Now, the UPA-II is stifling our power generation potentials. This cannot be pleasing to any investor.

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