Oppn forces counting of votes on bill in Bihar Assembly, loses

PATNA: The Opposition on Wednesday forced voting on Bihar Engineering University Bill, 2021, one of the three bills passed by the Bihar Legislative Assembly during the third day of its five-day monsoon session.

The Opposition forced counting of votes after its proposal fell by voice vote during the passage of the Bill, but the result remained unaltered. There were 110 votes against the Opposition proposal to replace “CM” with “Chancellor” in the Bill, while there were just 89 votes in favour. The bill proposes to bring all the government and private engineering colleges in the state under one umbrella, with CM as the Chancellor.

The Opposition wanted that Chancellor should remain the Chancellor, as was the case with other state universities.

Earlier in 2008, all the technical institutions, including those of engineering and medical, were brought under the Aryabhatt Knowledge University, but the government decided to come up with a university exclusively for engineering colleges due to rapid increase in their numbers in the last one decade and development of modern and allied fields. Now, all 38 districts have an engineering college.

Deputy CM Tarkishore Prasad, who also holds the finance portfolio, moved the Bihar Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) (amendment) Bill, 2021 to provide amendments in fiscal targets for 2021-22, as recommended by the 15th Finance Commission and the government of India.

The third bill passed was the Bihar GST (amendment) Bill, 2021, necessitated due to change in the central legislation following the recommendation of the GST Council, as both the central and legislation’s need to be in consonance.