Four-day winter session begins in J'khand

Ranchi, Dec 14 (UNI) The four-day winter session of the Jharkhand Assembly began here today with the introduction of the second supplementary budget for the current fiscal.

The budget standing at about Rs 1473 crore was placed by Finance Minister Stephen Marandi. It would be passed tomorrow after a debate.

Mr Marandi, also the parliamentary affairs minister, tabled the Jharkhand State Highways Authority (ordinance), 2007 bill.

Speaker Alamgir Alam in his inaugural address urged the legislators to make the most of the small session and hoped that the members would extend cooperation in running the session smoothly.

The Speaker condoled the death of former Karnataka Chief Minister S R Bommai, Rajya Sabha member J P Mathur, law expert Laxmimal Singhvi, former union minister J Krishnamurthy, former minister of united Bihar Kailashpati Singh, former MLAs/MLCs Maniram Singh, Lambodar Pathak and Ram Vilas Jha and noted Hindi poet Trilochan Sashtri.

Others who expressed condolence were Chief Minister Madhu Koda, Leader of Opposition Arjun Munda, Deputy Chief Minister Sudhir Mahto and leaders of respective parties' legislature wings.

The House also condoled the death of victims in Chilkhari massacre by CPI(Maoist) in which 19 people were killed and death of an adivasi in Assam recently while adivasis residing in that state were holding demonstration in support of their demand.

UNI