Bihar to reconstitute treasury & accounts directorate

The Bihar government is going to reconstitute the Treasury and Accounts Directorate which was dissolved after the fodder scam surfaced in the 1990s, the assembly was informed on Tuesday.

The RJD government had dissolved the directorate after the fodder scam surfaced in the animal husbandry department, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi Tuesday said.

The department has now been called animal and fish resources department.

The scam surfaced during the RJD regime when party president Lalu Prasad was the chief minister of Bihar. He was convicted in several cases of the scandal and is currently serving sentence in a Ranchi jail.

Since all the treasuries of the state have been made online, the necessity of sub-treasuries has reduced, he said adding that the number of sub-treasuries would be gradually reduced, and all of them will be closed down by April 2020.

Employees of the treasuries will be posted in every department, he said adding that district finance cell will be constituted in each of the districts.

Replying on the debate on the budget for 2019-20, Modi who also holds finance portfolio, said all the government purchases are currently being made through the Government e- Marketplace (GEM) portal.

The state government has so far bought various items valued at Rs 423 crore via the GEM portal and saved between Rs 70,000 to Rs 1 lakh for every vehicle purchased for the police department, he said.

All the departments have been asked to make purchases beyond Rs 50,000 through the GEM portal, Modi said adding that the government has set a target of making purchases worth Rs 2000 crore through the portal.

The state government has accorded top priority to education department for which it has allocated Rs 34,798 crore in 2019-20, the deputy CM said adding that Rs 9622 crore has been allocated to health and Rs 12,923 crore for road department.

Modi said the state's NDA government has spent Rs 99,625 crore on energy sector since 2005-06.

After ensuring power connection to every household in the state, the government would provide electricity to farm land through dedicated feeder by the end of this year, Modi said.

Taking a jibe at leader of opposition Tejashwi Prasad Yadav whose party members raised anti-government slogans and staged a walkout, Modi said Yadav has not been seen in past two days in the House.

"In my 30 years of parliamentary career, this is the first time I have seen that the leader of opposition is not present during the debate on budget," he said.