Aspirations and Inventiveness: Bettiah’s Getting Better

 
When Nehru visited Bettiah in West Champaran, North Bihar to inaugurate one of India’s first hydropower plants, he envisioned that Bettiah would become the fifth metro of India. According to him the list should have read Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta, Madras and Bettiah. Unfortunately Bettiah didn’t realize that dream, but it has some other things going for it.

Valmiki Nagar - Bihar’s only Project Tiger Reserve and probably one of the most pristine forests in north India is located towards the north of the district. Although there’s only one old inspection bungalow where you can stay near the park, the government of Bihar has announced recent plans to provide some tourist infrastructure and they even want to have a celebrity brand ambassador to promote the park (like Mr.B is doing for Gir and Gujarat I guess).

On the outskirts of town on the smooth new road connecting Bettiah to Patna is a Korean / Japanese restaurant. The thing is, it's not one of those Punjabi-Chinese or Bihar-Chinese places. It’s an authentic Japanese restaurant, serving things like Sushi, Tempura, Domburi and other things you wouldn’t expect in the corner of the universe. And to ensure that things are done just so, it’s run by a Korean chef. With better roads and connectivity and the growing influx of Buddhist circuit tourists, seeing places like this dotted across the state is not a surprise.

Another pleasant surprise is the Ramnagar Primary Health Center (PHC) that I recently visited. In my mind it offers a shining example how the public sector is getting its act together.  The place is run by Dr. Kiran Jha. He’s very proud and involved in this new posting, and he should be given that this place was once run by his father who was also a doctor here, and given that he was born in its wards. But somewhere down the line, much like the history of the entire state, the place went to the dogs.  Over time, more and more of the PHC buildings fell apart and were abandoned, fewer staff were working there, and the center was essentially used as a venue to channel patients to the private clinics of various health providers in the town. Eventually the PHC became more commonly referred to as the bus stand, since local bus and taxi operators had taken over the large compound.

Over the last year or so, however things have changed, and what’s been notable is the resourcefulness of the PHC staff, and the simple fact that unlike many other PHCs that I’ve recently  visited, no one here was complaining that they didn’t have the funds or resources to improve the place. Dr. Kiran Jha and his team have realized that they can make huge changes with what they already have, it’s just a matter of being inventive.

After cajoling the bus operators to move out, the first thing they did wasn’t improve ward hygiene or something important like that. No, instead they hired a gardener and got many of the buildings painted – so that people would know that they PHC was operational and would start walking in again. They found an old metal stretcher, welded two poles to it and used it as a new sign board at the main entrance. They emptied out the rubble from one of the condemned buildings, put in some wooden planks found in the old pharmacy building and turned it into a patient’s waiting area. With some help from our colleagues at CARE they have made dramatic improvements to the actual functioning of the wards, the labor room and operations theatre. Dr Jha pulled out his iPad and started showing us ‘before and after’ photos of the place and records of how the client footfalls had dramatically increased, as had doctors and nurse attendance, and talked about a twitter campaign to draw attention to their success and their needs. This is my little plug for Dr Jha and team.

Seeing things like this make you realize that the changes happening in Bihar are real. Even if they are small and sporadic, they are happening.