Interim Budget presented in Bihar Assembly amidst strong protest by BJP members

Patna,(BiharTimes): Bihar’s water resources minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary presented a tax surplus Interim Budget for 2014-15 amidst strong protest from the BJP members, who wanted it to be presented by the chief minister Nitish Kumar, who is actually holding the finance portfolio.

The Interim Budget, the first of its kind by the Janata Dal (United) government, proposed nearly 27 per cent increase in total receipts at Rs 1,16,882.77 lakh crore for the next finance year.

The ruckus created by the BJP members forced the minister to take Speaker Uday Narayan Chaudhary’s permission to lay the copy of the Budget in the House.

One of the salient features of the Budget includes a Rs 32.76-crore scheme launched for providing napkin packs to the girl students in schools from April 1. The CM had already made this announcement during the Sankalp rally a day earlier.

Chaudhary said the 27 per cent increase in the total receipts from last financial year pointed to an improved financial position of Bihar.
Later, while talking to the media, he said the state government has been able to raise the total receipt figure at Rs 1,16,682 lakh crore for next fiscal by attaining nearly 48 per cent increase in the plan expenditure at Rs 57,655 crore as against Rs 39,006 crore in the last financial year.

He said while a staggering increase in the Plan expenditure has been proposed for next financial year, there would be moderate jump in non-plan expenditure by Rs 6,150 crore at Rs 59,231 crore as against Rs 53,081 crore last year.

According to him the increased allocation for Plan and non-Plan expenditure of the state government for 2014-15 indicated that there has been significant rise in revenue receipt both tax and non-tax sources.

He said the tax revenue of the state would rise by 22.42 per cent amd touch Rs 25,662 crore in the next fiscal as against Rs 20,962.70 crore in 2013-14. He said the state government has been able to contain the fiscal deficit of the gross state domestic product at 2.96 per cent for next year which was well within the limit of three per cent proposed under the FRBM Act.

Chaudhary said the Budget for 2014-15 has been estimated to be revenue suplus by Rs 10,174.03 crore.

Education has been allocated with Rs 24,715 crore––an increase by about 35 per cent––of which Rs 12,457 crore would be spent under non-Plan head, while the remaining amount for Plan.

Chaudhary said that he would table a vote-on-account later this week to take sanction of the house to draw funds from the treasury for expenditure to be incurred by the state government over the next four months till June this year during which Lok Sabha election woujld be held.