Bihar: Abandoning elderly parents can now land children in jail

Patna, June 12: The Nitish Kumar-led Bihar Cabinet has approved a proposal to punish sons and daughters who abandon their elderly parents with a jail term. The proposal can be a game changer if it formally makes it compulsory for wards to look after parents.

The proposal of Bihar social welfare department has provisions for punishments which could go up to imprisonment if wards do not look after their parents properly in their old ages.

The cases against the wards will be registered under the non-bailable section in Bihar after receiving complaints from the elderly parents.

The Bihar Cabinet also decided to give government jobs to the dependents of martyrs of Pulwama and Kupwara terrorist attacks who belong to the state.

Ratan Kumar Thakur (Bhagalpur), Sanjay Kumar Sinha (Patna) and Pintu Kumar Singh (Begusarai) were killed in the two incidents in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Bihar government will offer the martyrs' dependents a job in Class III and IV category, as per their qualification, Cabinet Secretariat Department's Principal Secretary Sanjay Kumar told reporters here.

The cabinet also sanctioned Rs 11.68 crore for preparation of a Detailed Project Report (DPR) for construction of a multi-purpose 130-MW Dagmara hydel power project in Supaul district of the state, Kumar said.

A total of 15 decisions were taken at the cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.