State revenue to overshoot budget estimates by 11%

Riding on sharp rise in mining royalty collection, Orissa is expected to end the current financial year with 11 per cent higher tax and non-tax revenue compared to the estimates in the annual budget for the year.

“Both tax and non-tax revenue collection is expected to reach around Rs 15,000 crore by the end of this fiscal”, said state finance minister Prafulla Chandra Ghadai.

The annual budget for 2010-11 had estimated the revenue from these sources at Rs 13525.99 crore.

"The mining royalty growth has been 138 per cent so far in this fiscal and the collection is likely to cross Rs 3000 crore. The excise revenue collection is also set to increase to Rs 1100 crore”, he added.

Ghadai disclosed this while addressing the delegates at the Pre-Budget consultation meet organized by the Orissa Budget Accountantibility Centre, a wing of the city-based NGO, Centre for Youth and Social Development (CYSD).

On the expenditure achieved by various state departments vis-a vis the budget estimates, he said, nine departments have recorded expenditure level of more than 60 per cent by the end of December 2010.

This is in accordance with the Cash Management System introduced by the state government which mandates that 60 per cent of expenditure, both Plan and Non-Plan, needs to be spent in the first three quarters of any fiscal.

“For those departments which have not achieved expenditure of up to 60 per cent, we have called a meeting of the departmental secretaries to know why they have been unable to record the desired expenditure level”, he said.