NDA unites in House for financial business, Oppn continues boycott
PATNA: The Bihar Legislative Assembly on Wednesday passed the current fiscal’s first supplementary budget of ₹43,995.23 crore with a voice vote and held a debate on the education department’s demand for ₹ 12013.86 crore, but without the participation of the entire Opposition, which stayed away over the issue of the new Agnipath scheme for short service recruitment into armed forces.
The Monsoon session ends Thursday.
After Tuesday’s episode in the second half, when the ruling JD-U members also stayed away from the House, the treasury benches presented a united look, with Speaker Vijay Kunar Sinha also communicating through chits with chief minister Nitish Kumar. Akhtarul Imam, the lone member of the AIMIM in the Legislative Assembly after the desertion of four party MLAs to the RJD earlier on Wednesday, entered the House later as the lone presence in the Opposition benches and was greeted by the members of the treasury benches. “Perhaps it is Imam’s sensitivity to education that has drawn him to the House. I was expecting the Opposition to participate in the debate on the budgetary demand of education.
Unfortunately, they have shown no interest in as important a topic as education and the scene here is disappointing despite requests from the Chair as well as the chief minister. The House looks desolate without the Opposition,” said education minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary, who also holds the portfolio of parliamentary affairs.
In an apparent dig at the Opposition, Choudhary said, “Whoever distances from education never succeeds in life... After all, education gets the biggest share of over 20% of the state budget and it is top on the Nitish Kumar government’s priority. Now spending on education is called investment and we are striving to regain the state’s lost glory in the field.”
Choudhary said that after more than four decades, the department had taken concrete steps for improvement in the madrasa education, including recent cabinet nod to three longpending rules concerning recruitment of teachers and nonteaching staff, formation of management committees and the constitution of Madarsa Shiksha Board with clearly laid down rights and duties.
‘1.22 cr toilets built under Swachh Bihar Yojana’
Rural development minister Shravan Kumar on Wednesday said in the state assembly that 1.22 crore toilets have been constructed for households under Lohia Swachh Bihar Yojana ( LSBY) and all those still not having a toilet in their household in rural areas would be covered under the scheme soon.
Kumar, replying to a short notice question in the pre-lunch session of the state assembly, said the government was committed to provide toilets to all households in the state. “The coverage of households under the scheme is already 77%. We have built around 9,000 community toilets for people’s convenience and working on a survey to identify how many households require toilets,”the minister said,.