Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today said they are committed to provide benefits of various welfare schemes to the needy on a priority basis.

"It was the top most priority of the state government to ensure that the needy people received benefits under various welfare schemes, like pension, houses under Indira Avas Yojana (IAY), guaranteed employment to the rural people under MNREGA, etc," he said in Saharsa on the third and final day of his seva yatra to the district.

Expressing displeasure at officials for non-consideration of pension to handicapped people, Kumar asked the officials to set up camps at the block office and distribute pension to the handicapped ones.

Stating that the state government has done away with the age limit for grant of pension to those handicapped, he directed the officials to carry out campaign at the grass root level to invite applications for the benefit and disburse the pension to those people and video graph the same.

On procurement of paddy, the CM asked the agriculture department officials to convene a meeting of the Primary Agriculture Cooperatives (PACs) chairpersons and secretaries within the next two days in order to activate them for procurement of paddy.

He said that adequate number of sacks be made available for procurement of paddy and the weighting equipments be certified by the authorities so that farmers could get a fair estimation of their produces as well as price.