Patna: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday chaired the Cabinet meeting in which caste-based census in the state was approved. Besides, the Cabinet also took up 12 other agendas for discussion and later it was cleared for implementation. The Bihar government will bear the cost of the caste-based census in the state. On Wednesday, an all-party meeting to this effect was convened at Samvad Bhavan of the CM's Secretariat. MLAs belonging to the ruling NDA alliance and opposition parties were present at the meeting. RJD's Tejashwi Prasad Yadav and Manoj Jha also attended the meeting. Bihar state BJP president Sanjay Jaiswal and Deputy Chief Minister Tarkishore Prasad also joined the all-party meeting to discuss the caste-based census.
Read: Nitish vows caste enumeration in state after all-party meeting
After the meeting was over, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said, “It is a unanimous decision of all political parties that caste-based census should be conducted in Bihar. The decision has been taken now. A census of all the castes among all religions will take place in Bihar. We will complete the said census in the stipulated time frame.” On the other hand, the Union government had made its stand clear on the caste-based census. The Central government will not take part in the census based on caste and community. Besides, the states were given the freedom to conduct a caste-based census on their own. The states will have to bear the cost of the census.
