TFC award not favourable to state: Ghadai

The Thirteenth Finance Commission (TFC) award pertaining to Orissa came in for criticism with the state finance minister Prafulla Chandra Ghadai terming the award as unfavourable to the state.

Though Orissa is the poorest state in the country, it didn’t receive any special dispensation from the finance commission, he said.

“Orissa’s share in the total transfer of funds to the states from the divisible pool by the Centre is only 4.78 percent. It was 5.16 per cent in the recommendations of the Twelfth Finance Commission earlier and we were expecting this share to go up this time”, Ghadai said his reaction to the TFC award for the state.

He said, though Orissa government submitted a memorandum to the TFC seeking Rs 2, 20,524 crore for the state, the Finance Commission has recommended for award of Rs 78,974.9 crore.

Besides, the state specific grants have been made conditional which would create difficulties in availing these grants, he added. Orissa received Rs 31,669 crore during the Twelfth Finance Commission dispensation.

The total transfers included Rs 69,316.1 crore share in the central taxes and duties and Rs 9,658.8 crore grant-in-aid. The grant-in-aid included Rs 3270.9 crore grant for the local bodies, Rs 1647.8 crore for disaster relief, Rs 1016 crore for elementary education, Rs 193.6 crore for improvement in justice delivery.

Similarly, an incentive of Rs 178.5 crore has been provided for issue of unique identity card, Rs 30 crore for district innovation fund and Rs 10 crore for development of employee and pension data base.

Under the environmental related grants, Rs 331 crore has been provided for forests, Rs 184 crore for water sector management, Rs 1022 crore for maintenance of roads and bridges and Rs 1745 crore for state specific needs.

The state specific grants included Rs 50 crore for development of Chilika, Rs 400 crore for setting up Anganwadi centres, Rs 275 crore for improving the health infrastructure, Rs 500 crore for system improvement in power sector, Rs 70 crore for police training, Rs 100 crore for improvement of jails, Rs 65 crore for development of budhist heritage, Rs 150 crore for fire service and RS 60 crore for setting up market yard.

Sources said, the TFC has put some conditions for availing the grants which included timely expenditure, submission of utilisation certificates and no diversion of funds to other scheme or purpose. It may be noted, the Commission, in its report, tabled in Parliament today has recommended increase in share of states to 32 per cent of central tax proceeds from the current level of 30.5 per cent.