Shimla: The budget session of the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly is set to kick off on February 23. The session will have a total of 16 sittings and will conclude on March 15.
Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur who also holds the finance portfolio will present the budget for the financial year 2022-23 on March 4. This will be the last time that CM Jai Ram Thakur will present the budget in his current tenure as the Legislative Assembly elections are set to take place in the second half of this year.
Recently, Speaker, Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly Vipin Parmar said that as many as 690 questions have been received for the budget session. Out of these, 490 are starred questions, of which 306 have been received online and 200 are unstarred questions, out of which 83 have been received online.
He said that the questions are related to the construction of roads, up-gradation of educational and health institutions, filling up of vacancies in various departments, rising criminal cases, energy, transport and new pension scheme.
Parmar said that drones will be used to ensure security as many as 480 police personnel will be deployed in the assembly complex. He said that an all-party meeting will be called on February 22.
Meanwhile, the opposition is set to target the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led state government during the upcoming budget session. Leader of Opposition Mukesh Agnihotri has said that he will be raising the issue of reinstating the old pension scheme in the upcoming session. Apart from this, the opposition will also be cornering the government over the issues of rising unemployment and inflation, rising crimes and poor state of law and order amongst mining mafias.
