Remark on Sarna rocks Assembly

Vijay Deo Jha Ranchi Wednesday, September 24, 2008

The Jharkhand Assembly remained on boil on Tuesday as legislators of the main Opposition party, BJP, raised protest over the alleged remarks made against Sarna religion in Nemha Bible, published by the Bible Society of India.

Demanding immediate action against the publishers and the distributors of the book, the party forced adjournment of the House for nearly 20 minutes. Party MLA Chandresh Oraon, who raised the matter demanded immediate actions against the society saying that it was done to disturb the social and communal harmony in the State. While pacifying the agitated members, Chief Minister Shibu Soren assured them to confiscate the book. On account of vociferous uproar, the House could not assume the question hour. The Opposition parties also raised the issue of para-teachers who were on protest demonstration against the State Government and Human Resource Ministry outside the State Assembly. The Opposition said that the State Government and the concerned minister were ignoring the plight of nearly 88,000 para-teachers whose "service terms" and "wage structure" have not been fixed. The Opposition drew support from the Treasury Bench - Uday Sankar Singh, RJD MLA from Sarath, wanted the State Government to take some concrete decision on the demands of the teachers.

The afternoon session of the Assembly discussed the cut motion tabled by JD(U) legislator Radhakrishna Kishore against the first Supplementary Budget of Rs 437 crore brought by the Deputy Chief Minister and Finance Minister Stephen Marandi. Kishore contended that the Supplementary Budget if passed by the Assembly would peg off the gross budgetary deficit which was Rs 16,682 crore according to the estimate of the State Government. "At a time, when the Government took no initiative to fill the gap of the deficit, the Supplementary Budget would further fuel the deficit," Kishore added.

Kishore also pulled the Government for projecting erroneous reports of the planned sub-expenditure. Questioning FM's claim that the Government utilised Rs 1,312.16 crore of the total amounts of Rs 8,000 crore under planned sub-expenditure till September 22, Kishore asked Marandi to explain how come it utilised nearly Rs 623 crore (approx) within the short span of time when the actual figure was only Rs 682.72 crore, on the closing date of August 31. Kishore also doubted the claim of the Government bringing down the loss of the State exchequer to zero per cent by March 31, 2009 while the revenue collection in the State was all time low; 16 per cent. "The UPA Government failed to maintain 22 per cent of revenue collection once achieved and maintained by the NDA during its rule," he claimed.

Kishore blamed the State Government for lacking in financial management as the figures of the different departments - Health, Agriculture, and Animal Husbandry could not utilise the allotted budget.

Intervening the debate over cut motion, Inder Singh Namdhari asked the Government to clear its stand on the Supplementary Budget when the Governor of the State raised doubt over it. The House would decide the motion on Wednesday. Other members including Raghubar Das, Chatruram Mahto both from BJP and Ravindra Mahto and Ramchandra Chandravanshi participated in the debate.