Appropriation Bill Unanimously Passed, Odisha Assembly Adjourned Sine Die

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Assembly on Monday passed the Appropriation Bill and approved the annual budget 2020-21, following which it was adjourned sine die.

The special session of House, which lasted for one hour, was held at the Convention Hall of the Lok Seva Bhawan.

Talking to the media, BJD spokesperson Amar Prasad Satpathy said that the Appropriation Bill amounting to Rs 1.5 lakh crore presented by the Finance Minister Niranjan Pujari was passed unanimously.

The session was attended by one-third members as directed by Speaker Surjya Narayan Patro as a social distancing measure in the wake of the novel coronavirus outbreak.

On March 13, the Speaker had suspended the Assembly proceeding till March 29 following the threat from the killer virus.

He had also announced that the budgetary demands for grants for different departments scheduled for discussion between March 16 and 27 will be passed through guillotine on March 30.

In an urgent press conference on March 28, Patro had informed that entire staff of Odisha Legislative Assembly had been quarantined after an employee was found to have come in contact with a COVID-19 positive person. “The Assembly building is being sanitized. The session that is scheduled to start from March 30 will be shifted to Loka Seva Bhawan. I request all political parties to attend the session with 1/3rd of their MLAs,” he had said.