Bihar Assembly passes Appropriation Bill 2019

The Bihar Assembly on Monday passed the state Appropriation Bill 2019 by voice vote.

The bill authorises the state government to meet various outstanding expenditure in addition to those sanctioned in the budget 2019-20.

Opposition members from RJD, Congress and CPI(ML) boycotted the Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi's reply to a debate on the bill as they demanded that the state government put pressure on the Centre to declare the flood as national calamity.

Asserting that victims of disasters have the first right over state's resources, the DyCM, who also holds the Finance portfolio, said that not a single family affected from floods this year will be deprived of gratuitous relief of Rs 6,000.

A total of Rs 295 crore has been transferred into the bank accounts of 4.91 lakh victim families at the rate of Rs 6,000 per family so far, he said adding that 102 people have died so far in the floods that have affected 72.78 lakh people in 104 blocks of 12 districts of the state.

The state government had transferred Rs 2,358 crore directly into the bank accounts of 38 lakh flood affected families during 2017 floods, the DyCM said, adding that 649 people had died while 1.72 crore people were affected by flood then.

Besides, the government has also given Rs 931 crore as assistance to 14.19 lakh farmers affected from drought in 280 blocks of 25 districts in the state so far, he said.

The government has earmarked Rs 4,320 crore to tackle disaster related incidents in the state this year besides enhancing the corpus of contingency fund to Rs 8,020 crore.

He said the state's budget size has gone over Rs two lakh crore in 2019-20 from Rs 23,885 crore in 2004-05.

The DyCM said that Rs 32,798 crore has been earmarked for Education department in the current fiscal and high schools will be set up in all 8,386 panchayats of the state by 2020.

He said that 12,02,188 vehicles were sold in the year 2018-19 while the vehicle sales figure was 2.20 lakh in 2008- 09.