Bihar legislative Assembly today passed the second supplementary demand to the tune of Rs 4,461.69 crore and the Bihar Appropriation (No.4) Bill, 2016 on the penultimate day of its week-long Winter Session.
The House passed the second supplementary demand for Rs 4,461.69 crore to meet various outstanding expenditures of the state government as well as the Bihar Appropriation (No.4) Bill, 2016 to authorise withdrawal of the above mentioned amount from the Treasury by voice vote.
The opposition members comprising of the BJP, LJP, RLSP and Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM)-Secular were absent from the House during the three hour-long discussion on the financial bills.
Replying to debate on the Bihar Appropriation (No.4) Bill, 2016, state Finance minister Abdul Bari Siddique lambasted the Opposition parties for their "irresponsible" conduct and said they have showed "mental bankruptcy" by abstaining from proceedings of the House to discuss financial issues for development of Bihar and welfare of its people.
He said the BJP members were deliberately creating ruckus in the House in order to avoid any discussion on purchase of land by them in Bihar and elsewhere in the country ahead of the demonetisation move by the Centre.
"BJP leaders are perhaps scared that they will be quizzed over purchase of land by them as well as the failure of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre to fulfil its electoral promise of depositing Rs 15 to 20 lakh in people's bank accounts after bringing back black money stashed abroad," Siddique alleged.
He also charged the NDA government with changing the funding pattern of the Centrally-Sponsored Schemes much to the detriment of poor states like Bihar which would have to raise additional funds to contribute to its share in implementation of these schemes.
He, however, said the state government was undeterred by these financial obstacles and would fulfil its commitment for which Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has come out with his 'Saat Nischay' (seven resolves) to cater to various socio-economic aspirations of the people.
Siddique said despite various constraints, the state government had come up with a budget for Rs 1.44 lakh crore for this fiscal to implement various socio-economic programmes, but this amount has not proved to suffice forcing the state government to seek sanction of the state legislature for supplementary demands to the tune of Rs 16,800 crore and Rs 4,461.69 crore during its previous and current sessions.
Earlier, replying to the debate, on his department's demand of Rs 1,185.05 crore under the second supplementary, state Rural Development minister Shrawan Kumar hit out at the Centre for reducing the its sharing ratio in implementation of various Centrally-Sponsored Schemes (CSS) which, he alleged, would impinge on the resources of the state government.
However, the state government was committed to mop up the required funds from its own sources to meet its commitment on CSS implementation in this fiscal, he added.
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