Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said on Monday that the interim budge of the Union government betrayed backward States such as Bihar.
“The budget is a story of failure. Under the UPA government, budgetary provisions were not up to the mark and growth slowed down. This budget does not have the potential to do anything. It does not show any concern towards Bihar and other backward States like Bihar. Last year’s budget raised our hopes for special status by evolving new criteria of backwardness. But it went no further from there. Backward States have been betrayed,” Mr. Kumar said.
Meanwhile, the Bihar Assembly also tabled its annual budget during the ongoing session of the State Legislature.
The Education sector continued to get a major chunk of the budgetary allocation as in the previous years. Of the total budget of Rs. 1.16 lakh crore for 2014-15, the share of education is Rs. 24,715 crore.
Bihar recently announced a new scheme of providing sanitary napkins to girls in government schools from class seven to class 12. The government has earmarked Rs. 32.76 crore for the scheme, which is scheduled to be rolled out from April.
The State has also begun the recruitment process for the appointment of 1.68 lakh school teachers, Bihar Minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary, in charge of the Finance department, said while presenting the budget.
The Health department has been allocated Rs. 4,805 core. The State’s health initiatives include setting up of a State Cancer Institute and a tertiary care cancer centre.
Power, which is one of Mr. Kumar’s key poll promises, has been given Rs. 6,354 crore for 2014-15. For road development, a hallmark of the Chief Minister’s development programme, the government has earmarked Rs. 4,898.04 crore.
For the Social Welfare and Scheduled Caste / Scheduled Tribe Welfare departments, the allocation is Rs. 4,631 crore and Rs. 1,159 crore respectively.
For Backward Class and Extremely Backward Class Welfare, which caters to an important vote base of Mr. Kumar, the government has allocated Rs. 1,475 crore.
Overall, however, the percentage share of budgetary allocation classified under ‘Social sector and Welfare and others’ has dropped to 8.01 per cent from 9.81 per cent in the last financial year.
