Rs 8,868 crore appropriation bill passed in Bihar assembly

PATNA: The state assembly on Monday passed the appropriation bill pertaining to the third supplementary budget worth slightly over Rs8,868 crore for the 2019-20 fiscal ending March 31.
Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi, who moved the bill, said the supplementary budget amount includes Rs6,983 crore as the scheme (or plan) expenditure. He also said the estimated state budget for the 2019-20 fiscal was Rs2.01 lakh crore. With the addition of the amounts related to the first and second supplementary budgets (Rs14,330 crore and Rs12,457 crore, respectively), as well as the amount pertaining to the third supplementary budget, the state budget for the 2019-20 fiscal would add up to Rs2.36 lakh crore.
However, the actual expenditure during the 2019-20 financial year would remain at Rs2.01 lakh crore, as the supplementary budgets contained amounts drawn from state contingency fund and the non-budgeted amount in the past for which the approval of the House for their appropriation had not been taken, Modi said, adding the appropriation for the third supplementary budget amount is in the nature of seeking the approval of the House.
Earlier, the House debate was conducted on the Rs144.47 crore of the rural development department (RDD) contained in the third supplementary budget against which senior RJD member Ramdeo Rai had moved the cut motion. The House passed it by voice vote, even as all the opposition members, excluding Rai, walked out of the House maintaining that they were not convinced by the government’s reply.
In his reply, RDD minister said the department had taken up work under three “exceptional” schemes and projects like CM’s homestead land purchase scheme, CM Gramin Awas Yojana and on the opening of Development Management Institute that is coming up near Bihta with an overall expenditure of Rs250 crore.
Minister Shrawan Kumar said DMI would produce skilled and fully trained professionals having deep and detailed knowledge of development work to make proper area-specific interventions to bring about socio-economic changes by helping in the execution of development activities.
He said Rs4.21 crore had already been distributed at the rate of Rs60,000 per homeless family to purchase land to build house under the CM’s homestead land purchase scheme. As to the 2019-20 fiscal, Rs50 crore had been allotted and 702 beneficiaries had been identified under the scheme. Their houses were being constructed under the PM Awas Yojana.
With respect to the CM Gramin Awas Yojana, the minister said the houses of scheduled caste, scheduled tribe and freed bonded labourers were being renovated, as they had been constructed during the 1985-96 period under Jawahar Rojgar Yojana and had become old and not worth living in. For this, Rs1.20 lakh would be given to each of the identified beneficiaries under the CM Gramin Awas Yojana.
A similar work was also being done in the five blocks of Muzaffarpur district that had reported most affliction and deaths caused by Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES).