"Everything was in shambles when I took over. There was no administration, no policing, no civic work culture. Governance remained my first and foremost challenge in such situation. It took a while to set right the system of governance. Thankfully, it has begun to work," he said.

Nitish is happy that international organisations and multilateral agencies are changing their perception towards Bihar. "We are getting generous offers for financial aid for the development schemes undertaken by the State Government. People have begun to realise Bihar is changing, and changing fast," he said.

Nitish pointed out the Plan size of Bihar has gone up nearly three fold during the last three years. "When I became Chief Minister, Bihar's Plan size stood at around Rs 5,000 crore, whereas for next year it was Rs 13,500 crore. You can imagine with three fold increase in expenditure, the State is bound to progress," he said.

At the same time, Nitish is not happy with the attitude of the Centre towards the State. He blamed the Centre for tardy progress of road projects under NHDP phase-III, and blocking a proposal to allow setting up of plant to produce ethanol. He is also bitter about that fact that despite his long fight, the Centre has not agreed to revise the list of people below the poverty line in Bihar.

"Some people ruined the State and are now playing politics with its future. But we will not give up," he said, adding," he will mobilise MPs cutting across party lines to raise the issue of Bihar effectively at the Centre in the coming days.

Mixing good governance with good politics, Nitish has made right moves to break Lalu Prasad's caste arithmetic, wooed a major chunk of the backward castes by introducing women reservation at panchayat level and ordering fencing of all Muslim graveyards. At the same time, to woo dalits he formed a Mahadalit Ayog, and decided to provide incentives to backwards among the dalits.

On the day this correspondent met the Chief Minister, he had inaugurated children's park in Patna's Kankaerbag colony. The park was done in just 21 days. " I hope some day to develop Patna as a city of children's parks," Nitish said, adding, " every piece of abandoned land will be beautified, and the city will look so different when we are through with it."