Poor resource mobilisation worries Ghadai

With only a marginal growth in the collection of commercial taxes, the mainstay of the state’s own revenue, the Orissa government find itself in a tight spot to mobilize required resources to finance this year’s state plan outlay which is fixed at Rs 9500 crore.

The commercial tax collection improved marginally at 0.54 percent till the end of July this year. This could be a consolation for the state finance minister Prafulla Chandra Ghadai who had to grapple with a negative growth of 2.75 percent till the end of June.

Add to this the impact of the rising salary bill following the implementation of the recommendations of the sixth pay commission; the finance minister is under tremendous pressure to arrange resources to finance the annual state plan which is inflated by Rs 2,000 crore over the previous year.

The negative growth in the collection of tax and non-tax revenue in the first quarter of the current fiscal and only marginal growth in the collection of commercial taxes due to the impact of slowdown, have forced the finance minister to call for a joint initiative by various revenue generating departments.

“This year is a challenging year for us as the plan size has increased to Rs 9500 crore. Besides, we need to collect more revenue to pay salary to the government employees as per the recommendation of the sixth pay commission”, Ghadai told the media after a high level review meeting with the ministers and secretaries of the revenue generating departments.

Sources said, the finance minister has asked other revenue generating departments to co-ordinate with each other and intensify raid on the tax evaders.

Similarly, the steel and mines department has been requested to initiate measures to prevent illegal mining to plug the leakages in mining revenue. The finance department will provide the required support for additional manpower if required, sources added.