Odisha govt presents Rs 1.5 lakh crore budget for FY21

Odisha Finance Minister Niranjan Pujari on Tuesday presented the annual budget for 2020-21 with an outlay of Rs 1,50,000 crore, a rise of 11.1 in comparison to the previous fiscal. While Rs 65,655 crore has been allocated as administrative expenditure, Rs 74,000 crore is meant for programme expenditure, Rs 3,200 crore for disaster response fund and Rs 7,145 crore towards transfers from the state, Pujari said in the assembly, describing it as a revenue surplus budget.

The minister had presented a Rs 1.39 lakh-crore budget for 2019-20. Pujari said the outlay is proposed to be financed through revenue receipt of Rs 1,24,300 crore and borrowing and other receipt of Rs 25,700 crore. "The fiscal deficit is estimated to be 3 per cent of GSDP for the year 2020-21," he said.

The total revenue receipt include the state's own tax of Rs 38,350 crore and non-tax revenue of Rs 17,650 crore, its share in central taxes for Rs 36,300 crore and grants from the Centre for Rs 32,000 crore. The capital outlay in 2020-21 is Rs 26,513 crore, which is about 4.5 per cent of the GSDP.

Additionally, loans and advances, grants for creation of capital assets and other expenditure for capital formation together account for Rs 10,000 crore, accounting for 1.7 per cent of the GSDP. For the first time, the Odisha government has switched to a digital method of budget presentation to reduce printing of papers for the exercise, Pujari said, adding, the e-budget format has saved about "1,000 large trees from being felled".

Pujari read out his budget speech from a tablet computer, while all MLAs, including Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, were provided with similar devices containing the budget document. The finance minister said nutrition budget, strategic budget and a climate code budget have been introduced this year.

By separating specific sectors, focus has been given to environment, child and women and infrastructure development, he said. Pujari, like other years, presented the budget in two parts - agriculture and general. For agriculture, he collocated Rs 19,408 crore for 2020-21 and said another Rs 12,000 crore is to be invested through extra budgetary resources. To increase income of farmers, the finance minister proposed a 'Samruddha Krishi Niti-2020' in the budget. He proposed an allocation of Rs 3,195 crore for the KALIA scheme. Pujari added that construction of in-stream storage structure in all major rivers with an investment of Rs 12,000 crore over five years is a step towards transformation.