Bihar: Grand Alliance Govt set to present its first Budget in House today

Bihar Finance Minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary is set to present Budget 2023-24, the first one to be tabled after the formation of the Grand Alliance (GA) government in the state. Experts believe that increasing the budget size will be challenging for the Bihar government.

Patna (Bihar): With the concluding speech of Bihar governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar in the Bihar legislative assembly, the Budget session 2023-24 kickstarted on Monday. On the second day of the House session, the Budget 2023-24 will be tabled on the floor of the House for discussion.

Bihar minister for finance, commercial taxes and parliamentary affairs Vijay Kumar Chaudhary will be presenting the Budget, the first one to be presented after the formation of the Grand Alliance (GA) government in the state. The GA also known as Mahagathbandhan, a coalition of eight parties, came to power in the state in August 2022 after Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led JDU broke ties with the BJP.

The House proceedings commenced at 11:00 am on Tuesday with the start of Question Hour. Ministers or incharge ministers of the department concerned gave replies to members' questions. After the Zero Hour and the Calling Attention Motion, the Budget 2023-24 will be tabled on the floor of the House for discussion.

Experts believe that the discussion on Budget 2023 in the House will be stormy. It will also be challenging for the government to increase the size of the Budget. In the Budget 2023, the Bihar government will have to make provisions for the state's agricultural roadmap and allocation of funds for the Seven Resolves program. Besides the Grand Alliance government had promised to provide 10 lakh government jobs. The creation of additional jobs will put an extra burden on the exchequer.

In the 2022-'23 fiscal, the Bihar Budget outlay was Rs 2,37,691.19 crore wherein Rs 1,00,230.25 crore was earmarked for different government schemes whereas Rs 1,37,460.94 crore was allocated for establishment expenses. Experts say that the state will be upping the Budget by 10 to 20 percent compared to previous year. So this year's budget estimate will be hovering around between Rs 2,60,000 and Rs 2,70,000 crores.