DONS AT WORK: With the mafia shouldering the responsibility of modernising the infrastructure there is little cheer for Bihar

At the inauguration ceremony for a railway project that included a Rs 650 crore rail bridge near Patna recently, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee remarked that Bihar no longer belonged to the bimaru group. It had become, he said, a jujharu (fighters') state. The prime minister's optimistic observation on the state's development in the 12 years of Laloo Prasad Yadav-Rabri Devi rule could be true only in a perverse sense. From prestigious Central projects to petty local enterprises, an increasing number of business activities in Bihar is being hijacked by the political mafia which has turned the state into a veritable battlefield where muscle and money are the deciding factors. In a sense, the only business flourishing in Bihar today is e-business-but of the kind no dotcomer would recognise. It's the business of extortion and involves kidnapping for ransom, collecting rangdari "tax" (protection money) and forcibly clinching government tenders.

DERAILED: Vajpayee humourously referred to Bihar's 'fighting' qualities at a recent function

Among the worst-affected projects is the prime minister's Golden Quadrilateral (GG) in the Sasaram-Mohania belt of central Bihar. "The people here demand sub-contracts at gunpoint," says R. Prasad, deputy general manager of Punj Lloyd, the firm constructing the arterial 45-km road link in the Delhi-Kolkata-Chennai-Mumbai-Delhi circuit with Korean multinational LGEC. "We have no option but to hire private gunmen for protection."

States

ROLL OF DISHONOUR With the creation of Jharkhand, Bihar has suffered a revenue loss of Rs 3,500 crore. Per capita income came down from Rs 5,134 to Rs 4,500. 49.64 per cent of the population lives below the poverty-line. There are around 1,000 gangs operating under various dons. A large section of the over 40 lakh unemployed graduates in the state goes to dons for "employment". Upper caste criminal-turned-legislators like Suraj Bhan and Munna Shukla have even syndicated their money-spinning extortion and kidnapping business. The annual turnover from extortion and kidnapping alone is estimated at Rs 75 crore. This is in addition to the transport and construction contracts that the dons control. Paying capacity in rural areas being low, gangs resort to group kidnapping, demanding Rs 5,000 to Rs 15,000 per head as ransom. On average, five vehicles such as goods-laden trucks are looted on Bihar's highways every day.

Unfortunately, much of the mess is of the state legislators' making. For instance, the GG fiasco began when don Sunil Pandey, a Samata Party MLA doing time in the Sasaram jail, brandished his guns and demanded protection money and contracts in return for not disrupting the prime minister's project. He succeeded and was reportedly awarded a Rs 24 crore contract to supply sand and boulders. This encouraged his rival Ram Bachan Yadav, the uncrowned king of Kaimur, to step in. Soon other criminals lined up, including MLAs Suraj Bhan (from inside Patna's Beur jail) and Suresh Pasi (recently released after serving seven years on criminal charges).

What followed was a series of threats, culminating in a bomb explosion at the main gate of LGEC's office near Kudra in Mohania. Coming at a time when the kidnapping of two engineers of the National Powergrid Corporation project in neighbouring Kasauli and the killing of a Korean engineer in Bodhgaya were making news, this caused widespread panic and an exodus of trained manpower.

Director-General of Bihar Police R.R. Prasad feels that companies are partly to blame as they appease the big dons to silence smaller ones. "The big dons then turn Frankenstein," he says. The people also resent the companies for ignoring local labour. "The road project created hopes of jobs but the political mafia hijacked everything," says Gopal Singh of the CPI(ML).

Besides the GG, the railways' modernisation work between Mokamah and Punpun near Patna is also under threat. On the eve of the inauguration of a rail bridge in Patna, extortionists demanded a hefty rangdari tax from the Fatua-Islampur railway project, underscoring their message by torching four tractors and firing 200 rounds in the air. Now companies hesitate to respond to tenders for railway projects for fear of attracting the dons' attention. "Unfortunately, the writ of the Laloo-Rabri Government does not prevail anywhere," says Union Railway Minister Nitish Kumar.

MAN POWER: The number of people abducted for ransom is on the rise

What does prevail is the parallel rule of the dons. On March 6-7, former MLA Umesh Paswan (BJP), Jagannath Pandey, farmer-brother of powerful RJD leader Baidyanath Pandey and Ramashray Prasad Singh, a practising doctor, were abducted from Begusarai. Ajay Kumar, president of the Indian Medical Association (Bihar chapter), reveals that in the past 15 months, 15 doctors were kidnapped. While experienced criminals target Central development projects, affluent professionals and farmers, the amateurs settle for traders, sometimes schoolteachers. Their modus operandi is similar. A rangdari tax is sought, often through a notice known as purzi. Those who choose to ignore the purzi are duly "dealt with". Most pay up without the police knowing about it.

Not that firs would make a difference. In fact, the reason for the bizarre situation in Bihar has been identified as the complete breakdown of the law and order machinery. And that in turn is a direct fallout of poor governance. Starved of funds, the Government has virtually ground to a halt as far as development activities are concerned. Rural youth, once employed under these projects, now idle and frustrated, turn to the czars of crime to make a living of sorts. It easier too since high-risk crimes like dacoity, theft and murder have given way to extortion and kidnapping, less risky but with equally high returns.

It is only occasionally that the Bihar Government faces the music. On March 18, with Laloo presiding in the Assembly, Leader of the Opposition Sushil Kumar Modi lambasted the RJD Government for almost 30 minutes, reeling out damning figures. "After the bifurcation of state, the crime industry got a new dimension," he said. "Nobody is safe." Ironically, on the same day 28 years ago, Laloo, as president of the Patna University Students Union, had begun a movement with Modi, the then union general secretary, against corruption and misrule under the Congress.

Today, the Government's apathy is telling on the state's economic health. The boom in Bihar's inimitable brand of e-business is causing a rapid flight of both human resources and business investments from the state. Added to this, many industries, mines and forests are now in Jharkhand. The per capita income in Bihar which remained stagnant at Rs 5,134, the lowest in the country, for a long time has gone down further after the division to Rs 4,500. Half the population (49.64 per cent) lives below the poverty line. In the absence of economic activity, the credit-deposit ratio is the lowest in India at 21:31. But that, as social researcher Shaibal Gupta of the Asian Development Research Institute says, is the "Bihari model of economy". A vicious circle where a stagnant economy only spawns a parallel, crime-driven one.