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Jharkhand: After long demand, the new state |
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August 4, 2000
NEW DELHI (AP) - The lower house of Parliament has passed a bill to create a new state for tribespeople out of India's poorest and the most lawless eastern state of Bihar. The mineral-rich area, to be known as Jharkhand state, will have 18 districts and a population of 27.5 million. A tribal campaign for a separate state has raged for years, accusing the Bihar state government of doing little for people in far-flung areas where there is poor infrastructure, little employment opportunity and no industry. The bill, approved on Wednesday night, will now be debated and adopted by the upper house of Parliament and then sent to President Kocheril Raman Narayanan, the constitutional figurehead, for his assent. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had promised to create three new states when he first assumed power in 1996. Indian state boundaries were last altered by a States Reorganization Commission in 1956. The two other proposed states are Chattisgarh in central India and Uttaranchal, a lower Himalayan province to be carved out of India's most populous Uttar Pradesh state. The population of Uttar Pradesh is estimated at more than 150 million - more than half the population of the Unites States and about one-fifth of Europe. |