State Budget size pegged at Rs 38,929 cr

The total size of the budget of the Orissa government for 2010-11 has been pegged at Rs 38,929 crore, which is 11.22 per cent higher than the budget of Rs 35,001.45 crore for the previous fiscal.

The Budget proposal was approved today at a high-level meeting of the Council of Ministers chaired by the state chief minister Naveen Patnaik.

Emerging from the meeting, state finance minister, Prafulla Chandra Ghadai said, the size of this year's budget will be higher than the budget size of the previous fiscal and the estimates made in the Vote on Account presented in March, this year.

The Vote-On-Account was pegged at Rs 17078.25 crore for the April-July period of this fiscal.

The state budget for the current financial year will focus on resource mobilization and timely expenditure of funds while no new tax will be imposed this year, Ghadai told reporters.

“This year's budget will be an 'Outcome Budget' with a strong emphasis on agricultural productivity, infrastructure development, social security and poverty alleviation. Our revenue collection is satisfactory and we need to focus on the optimum utilization of both Plan and Non-Plan expenditure”, he added.

Many new schemes are on the anvil, Ghadai said, but refused to reveal the details. The Budget will also focus on 'Cash Management System' to avoid rush in expenditure towards the end of the financial year.

He declined to comment on the revenue deficit figure in the ensuing budget which will be tabled in the state legislative assembly on June 22.

It may be noted that the Vote-On-Account had pegged the total revenue receipt for 2010-11 at Rs 30,602.06 crore while the revenue expenditure was projected at Rs 31,807.99 crore, thereby projecting a revenue deficit of Rs 1205.93 crore for this fiscal which is 0.71 per cent of the state GDP.

According to the Vote on Account, the estimated expenditure in the capital account was likely to exceed the receipts by Rs 886.65 crore. So the total deficit in the Consolidated Fund was estimated at Rs 2090.58 crore.

Similarly the fiscal deficit was projected to be Rs 5282.34 crore for the current fiscal (representing 3.11 per cent of the GDP), which was lower than the fiscal deficit of Rs 6004.32 crore projected in the budget for 2009-10.