Odisha Annual Plan for 2013-14 fixed at Rs.21,500 crore

The Annual Plan of Odisha for the 2013-14 financial year has been fixed at Rs.21,500 crore.

The plan size was finalised at a meeting between Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik here Tuesday.

Ahluwalia said the eastern state's efforts at improving human development indicators were "appreciable". He said the human development indicators had improved across all regions and all classes in Odisha.

The overall literacy rate for Odisha is 73.45 percent against the national average of 74.04 percent in 2011. The gender gap in literacy has come down from 24.84 percentage points in 2001 to 18.04 in 2011. Infant mortality rate has declined from 73 in 2006 to 57 in 2011 and maternal mortality rate from 303 during 2004-06 to 258 during 2007-09.

Poverty in Odisha has declined by 20.2 percentage points from 57.2 percent in 2004-05 to 37 per cent in 2009-10. This is the highest reduction in poverty among all states during the reference period.

Ahluwalia said the state had achieved progress during 11th Plan in all sectors, including agriculture, and that public private partnership needed to be further encouraged in both physical and social infrastructure development.

Overall, the fiscal performance of the state is "stable" with both primary and revenue deficits recording significant declines in the last five years.

He said the state has maintained a sound fiscal health and has space for more capital investment.

Patnaik pointed out that for faster and balanced socio-economic development, the major focus of the state would to develop critical infrastructure, mainly "bijli, sadak and pani" (power, roads and water) and to set up public sector investments in high priority sector such as agriculture, infrastructure and human development.

He said that despite global economic slowdown, Odisha's economy had grown at a real annual average rate of 7.13 percent at 2004-05 prices during the 11th Plan period against the target of 9 percent. Efforts to pursue fiscal reform measures aimed at augmenting revenue and managing expenditure more effectively will continue.

The chief minister repeated the demand for special category status and pointed out that the state satisfied most of the criteria for Special Category Status, except that it does not have an international boundary. Also, Odisha has a very high concentration of Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes population with high incidence of poverty among them.