Patna, Jan 13 (Reporter) Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said that all together, 96,823 newly appointed teachers got their appointment letters across the state on Saturday. Addressing a function organised here for the distribution of appointment letters, the Chief Minister expressed his pleasure that among the newly appointed 96823 teachers, 51 percent were women. He said in the first phase of the appointment, more than 1 lakh and 20 thousand teachers were given their appointment letters two months ago in the state. Reiterating his commitment to providing quality education to the children, Kumar assured that he would fill the rest of the vacant seats with teachers shortly. It was a matter of great pleasure that the appointments have been made from other states too, Kumar said, and he asked the newly appointed teachers to discharge their responsibilities carefully in shaping up the bright future of the students. He said 85 percent of the people of Bihar have been appointed in the second phase. The Chief Minister said that in 2006–07, his government had hired 3 lakh, 68,000 teachers through the Panchayat and other civic bodies and announced to give them the status of state employees at the earliest, a process that will be initiated soon. The Chief Minister said a general examination would be conducted, and those qualifying for the examination would be given the status of state employee. He said the hired teachers would get three chances to clear the examination to get the status. Referring to his earlier announcement for the appointment of 10 lakh youth and for providing employment opportunities to an additional 10 lakh people, Kumar said more than 3 lakh 63 000 people have so far been appointed, and the government has provided employment opportunities to another 5 lakh people. Kumar announced plans to make 5 lakh appointments in the government sector shortly and maintained that his government would fulfil its promises of providing appointments to 10 lakh people and employment opportunities to an additional 10 lakh youths. He further said that due to some restrictions, journalists were unable to publish the development works of the Bihar government, which has constructed 2,768 new school buildings and 3,530 classrooms for opening higher secondary schools in every panchayat. For this, the government has approved a sum of Rs 7530 crore. Referring to the survey conducted in 2005, the Chief Minister said the report revealed that more than 12.5% of children who were out of school belonged to minorities and mahadalit sections...////...