Ranchi, Feb 28 (PTI) The Jharkhand Assembly on Friday passed the third supplementary budget of Rs 5,508 crore for the 2024-25 fiscal, after a debate on it.

Finance Minister Radha Krishna Kishore tabled the third supplementary budget on Thursday, allocating a maximum outlay of Rs 971.80 crore to the energy department, followed by Rs 873.29 crore to rural works and Rs 502.61 crore to home, jail and disaster management.

Taking part in the debate, BJP’s Raj Sinha said the requirement of the third supplementary budget of Rs 5,508 crore, just two days ahead of the main budget for 2025-26, is beyond his understanding.

Sinha alleged that the government could spend only 60-65 per cent of the total budget allocation for 2024-25.

“In the agriculture sector, the government could spend only 20-22 per cent,” he claimed.

The BJP’s Dhanbad legislator also claimed that around 2.07 lakh government jobs declined in the past two years and now only 1.59 lakh jobs are left with the government.

“The government failed on all its promises. Migration is high in Jharkhand as youths are not getting jobs,” he alleged.

The finance minister said Jharkhand saw two consecutive elections —parliamentary and assembly, due to which around five months of the fiscal went under the model code of conduct.

“This has impacted the revenue expenditure and generation. Many departments said that they would not be able to spend the allocated budget for 2024-25. So, we have asked such departments to surrender their funds so that these could be given to other departments,” he said replying to the question pertaining to the requirement of the third supplementary budget.

After the debate, the supplementary budget was passed by voice vote.

The Speaker, then, adjourned the House till 11 am on Monday. PTI SAN SAN BDC

Supplementary budget reallocates surrendered departmental funds to address emergent fiscal needs ahead of the main budget. Passage of a third supplementary budget authorises reallocation of surrendered and unspent departmental appropriations to priority sectors to meet emergent fiscal needs ahead of the main budget; the need is attributed to constrained expenditure during an extended model code of conduct period and uneven utilisation across departments, and the measure was approved by voice vote.