Odisha to deny supplementary budget for low spending departments

Departments who have spent less than 30% by Sept end to be denied funds

Cracking the whip on departments with low spending, the state finance department has decided not to provide any substantive supplementary provision for departments whose spending is less than 30% (of the Budget estimates) by the end of September.

The denial of additional provision is in line with the Cash Management System introduced in 2010-11. 

The system mandates departments to spend at least 60% of the stipulated Budget provision by December to avoid rush of expenditure towards the fag end of a fiscal year.

The state's supplementary budget size was pegged at Rs 4,502.34 crore in the last fiscal. But, the state is likely to settle for a lower provision in this fiscal given the constraints in resource realisation and the changed sharing pattern in respect of 33 centrally structured schemes.

"It would not be possible to make substantive provision under any unit in absence of adequate resource backup. Hence, this Supplementary Statement of Expenditure, 2015-16 is proposed to be purely an adjustment budget in which the administrative departments would be allowed to augment the provision in one unit only by locating equivalent savings in some other unit of expenditure", said a notification by the finance department.

The department has stressed on preparing the supplementary Budget proposals based on actual need and said it should be commensurate with the actual spending capacity of the departments.