Odisha Assembly Speaker Surama Padhi Announces Second Phase of Budget Session

Bhubaneswar (Odisha) [India], August 19: Odisha Assembly Speaker Surama Padhi announced on Monday that the second phase of the Odisha budget will resume on August 20 and run until September 13, focusing primarily on the demands and discussion over the budget.

“The budget session of Odisha will continue from tomorrow, August 20, to September 13. The main subject will be demand and discussion over the budget. Out of 147, 84 MLAs are new. They have just started their career. Many of the MLAs have experience. In the orientation programme of the Legislative Assembly, the opposition was absent but the central parliamentary affairs minister, Kiren Rijiju, explained the parliamentary tradition and said good things about Odisha,” Surama Padhi said.

Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi, who also holds the finance portfolio, presented the Rs 2.65 lakh crore budget for the 2024-25 fiscal on July 25, 2024. The budget for the current fiscal year exceeded the budgetary forecast of Rs 2.30 lakh crore for the fiscal year 2023-24 by almost 15 per cent.

Majhi proposed spending Rs 33,919 crore on agriculture, which is around 36 per cent higher than what was allotted the year before. He stated that of the overall budget estimates, the programme spending was estimated to be Rs 1.55 lakh crore, the administrative expenditure to be Rs 97,725 crore, and the disaster risk management funds to be expended at Rs 3,900 crore.

However, the BJP had termed the budget a historic and people-orientated one that would help in the development of Odisha. After Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi-led BJP government presented its first state budget, former Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik mocked it as ‘Name Changer’ and said that this budget saw 80 per cent of his schemes being repeated.

In a post on X, Patnaik congratulated the new government of Odisha on presenting its first budget and mocked it, saying, “Special congratulations for repeating more than 80 per cent of the schemes implemented by our government. More than 80 per cent of your budget allocation flows towards the schemes formulated by the BJD Government.” He also mentioned that the BJP government has changed the names of 45 schemes.

“BJP formed Government by promising people that they will bring ‘PARIBARTAN’. After going through the budget documents, I see ‘PARIBARTAN’ or CHANGE’- This Government has changed the names of 45 schemes. BJP said their government will be a GAME CHANGER but unfortunately has ended up being a ‘NAME CHANGER’,” he added.

“This budget saw 80 per cent of our schemes being repeated. It shows the robustness, pro-people and progressive character of the schemes designed and implemented by the BJD Government. The rest 20 per cent resource allocation is what they will use to implement their manifesto promises to the people of Odisha,” Patnaik said on X earlier.