Expenditure at 89.25 % of Budgetary Estimate

Orissa has shown a significant improvement on the expenditure front in 2010-11. The state's overall expenditure, Plan as well as Non-Plan, in the last fiscal stood at Rs 35,610.41 crore, which is an achievement of 89.25 per cent of the Budgetary Estimate (BE) of Rs 39,896.59 crore for the fiscal.

While the state government's Plan expenditure, taking into account State Plan (SP), Central Plan (CP) and Centrally Sponsored Plan (CSP) at Rs 11,506.60 crore was 89.07 per cent of the BE of Rs 12,917.78 crore, the Non-Plan expenditure at Rs 24,103.81 crore was an achievement of 89.34 per cent of BE of Rs 26,978.81 crore.

The expenditure under CP in 2010-11 was Rs 627.25 crore which was only 57.33 per cent of the BE of Rs 1,093.94 crore while that under SP stood at Rs 9,243.86 crore, an achievement of 92.43 per cent over the BE.

Similarly, the expenditure under CSP stood at Rs 1,635.49 crore representing 90.44 per cent utilization of the BE of Rs 1,808.37 crore.

Many departments including home, general administration, commerce, food supplies & consumer welfare, SC & ST Development, housing & urban development, transport, panchayati raj, agriculture, steel & mines, information & public relations, rural development, energy, cooperation, textiles & handloom, tourism & culture, public enterprises, information technology and higher education have clocked expenditure levels of more than 90 per cent for the fiscal ended March 31 this year.

The departments whose spending was below 70 per cent are water resources, labour & employment, public grievances & pension administration and industries.

The expenditure levels of the departments have shown a marked improvement following the introduction of the Cash Management System in 10 key departments in the last fiscal.

These departments are School & Mass Education, Rural Development, Housing & Urban Development, Health & Family Welfare, Panchayati Raj, Water Resources, Agriculture, Women & Child Development, Higher Education and Works.

The state finance department has now decided to extend the system to five more departments, industries, energy, fisheries & animal resources department, SC & ST Development and forest, in the current financial year.

The Cash Management System stipulated that the departments had to spend 60 per cent of the expenditure in the April-December period of any fiscal while the balance 40 per cent was to be spent in the last quarter including an expenditure limit of up to 15 per cent in the last month.

The system was introduced to avoid rush in expenditure, especially in the last quarter of a fiscal.