By IANS,
Patna : Bihar has borrowed a helicopter from Jharkhand for operations against Maoist rebels, a state minister told the state assembly Monday.
“Bihar is taking a helicopter from neighbouring Jharkhand during its combing operations against Maoists because the state has no helicopter of its own,” Water Resources Development Minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary told the house in a reply to a question by a Bharatiya Janata Party member.
The minister blamed the central government for delay in finalising the terms and condition for hire of an MI-17 helicopter for operations against Maoists in the state.
He said the state police headquarters in 2011 wrote a letter to the union home ministry seeking to hire a helicopter but the ministry has yet to decide about it.
“The state government will again write to the central government in this connection soon,” he said.
Choudhary said that Jharkhand has two helicopters and lends them to Bihar without charge for operations against Maoists.
He said that, like Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand, Bihar too needed a helicopter to assist it in the fight against Maoists.
More than a dozen of the state’s 37 districts are affected by Maoists.