Patna, Mar 24 (PTI) RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav on Monday claimed that the economic progress of Bihar during his party's 15-year rule was equivalent to the growth during the reign of the NDA, which has been in power for close to 20 years.

Yadav, the leader of the opposition, made the claim in the assembly while participating in a debate on the budget presented by Deputy CM Samrat Choudhary.

He told the House that the size of the state's budget was merely Rs 3,000 crore in 1990 when his father Lalu Prasad first took over as the chief minister.

In 2005, when the party was ousted from power, the size of the budget was Rs 28,000 crore, an increase of more than nine times, he added.

In comparison, Yadav averred, "the budget has grown to Rs 2.78 lakh crore since 2005", when JD(U) president Nitish Kumar took over.

"So, for achieving roughly the same nine-fold growth, these people (NDA) are blowing their own trumpet," he said, maintaining that Bihar still stood at the bottom in the country in terms of development indices and that despite a "double engine" government, the state was getting "stepmotherly treatment from the Centre".

Yadav alleged that the state was also facing a grave financial crisis because of rising debt and "teachers and doctors are not getting their salary because the government has no money". PTI PKD NAC SOM

Budget growth parity raises debate over alleged fiscal crisis and unpaid public salaries in Bihar. Tejashwi Yadav asserted that Bihar's budget expanded at a rate comparable to the subsequent NDA period yet the state remains low on development indices, alleging that rising debt and constrained liquidity have produced a fiscal strain resulting in unpaid salaries for teachers and doctors.