By IANS
Ranchi : It has been seven years since Jharkhand was carved out of Bihar, but even now the state government here functions from rented accommodation.
Jharkhand government has taken over the Heavy Engineering Corporation (HEC) buildings here to run the state secretariat, assembly, police headquarters and the legislators' hostel for which it pays a rent of Rs.30.84 million per year. It has paid Rs.240 million as rent to the HEC so far.
In the absence of its own helicopter, the state government has also paid Rs.3.12 billion as rent for hiring helicopters in the last seven years.
"At present, we do not have enough money to purchase helicopters. We will make a provision for it in the supplementary budget to be placed in the monsoon session of the Assembly," a state government official said.
The state leaders are quick to blame one another for the present state of affairs. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state president P.N. Singh said it was the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government which had initiated the Greater Ranchi project.
"We had planned to take care of everything in the project, but political compulsions forced us to go on the backfoot," he said.
Refuting Singh's claim, deputy chief minister Stephen Marandi said: "The NDA government did virtually nothing for the state. It is the present United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government which started the Greater Ranchi project. We will take care of all the problems once the project starts."