Bhubaneswar: Speaker Niranjan Pujari has convened an all-party meeting February 1 prior to the start of the Budget session of the Assembly, though the state government is yet to finalise the date the session would start.
“The Speaker has convened an all-party meeting February 1. The meeting will focus on ensuring smooth running of the House among other things,” Biju Janata Dal (BJD) chief whip Ananta Das said.
However, the state government is yet to confirm the date for the start of the Budget session of the House for the 2016-17 fiscal. The Assembly secretariat had given a proposal to the parliamentary affairs department to conduct the Budget session from February 9. However, a notification in this regard is yet to be issued.
“The date of the Budget session is likely to be finalised following the all-party meeting to be convened by the Speaker,” said Assembly secretary Amiya Sarangi.
He also said the proposal of starting the session February 9 does not seem feasible. “The gap between issue of notification and start of an Assembly session is normally 15 days and, if relaxation is given, the gap can be reduced to 13 days,” Sarangi said.
The state government is taking lot of caution in preparing the Budget as it reportedly faced financial crunch shortly after tabling a Rs 84,000 crore Budget for the 2015-16 fiscal with the Centre delinking eight major schemes from central funding and curtailing funds in various schemes, sources said.
“The BJD government, despite getting huge funds during the UPA regime at the Centre, was blaming it on central negligence. However, after getting a shock from the present (NDA) government, which reduced funds flow to the state, for the first time an all-party meeting has been convened, in which they will probably discuss about bringing an interim budget for the first three months of the next fiscal,” said Congress chief whip Taraprasad Bahinipati.BJD members have, however, refuted the allegations of the Congress. PNN
