President Kovind on his first Bihar visit today, to launch Krishi Road Map

President of India, Ram Nath Kovind will unveil Rs 1.54 lakh crore Third Agriculture Road Map, on his daylong visit to Patna on Thursday.

This is President's first visit to Bihar, after moving to Rashtrapati Bhavan. He will land at Patna airport at 11.25am.

Kovind’s itinerary also includes a visit to Raj Bhawan roundabout, where he will pay his tribute to Rajendra Prasad, the first President of India. He will then proceed to the newly inaugurated Bapu Sabhagaar at Samrat Ashok International Convention Centre-Patna, where he will launch the Road Map.

The Krishi Road Map was approved by the Nitish Kumar led NDA government last month, and the CM said he envisaged having at least one Bihar dish on every platter by 2022, in a bid to boost the agriculture sector in the state. It also aims at ensuring food security, nutrition, inclusive development and increase in farmers’ income, an agriculture department official said.

While some of the programmes under the third Agriculture Road Map are a continuation of its previous two editions, as many as 12 departments, including, Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Pisciculture, Revenue and Land Reforms, Water Resources, Power, and Food Processing are coordinating to ensure smooth implementation of the third Road Map.

Kovind, who will return to Delhi the same day, will also pay tributes to Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan at his statue near Gandhi Maidan.

On Wednesday evening, CM Nitish himself reviewed the preparations for the President’s visit. It may be mentioned that Nitish shared very cordial relations with Kovind, during the latter’s tenure as the governor of the state, and the JD-U chief was among the very first few people who met Kovind after the BJP announced him as NDA’s Presidential pick earlier this year.