BHUBANESWAR: With expenditure on welfare measures going up manifold due to announcement of several schemes, including Kalia, by the state government before elections, the size of annual budget for 2019-20 is likely to increase by more than 10 per cent to accommodate the growing allocations.
The budget will be presented in the Assembly on June 28. The debt burden which was Rs 87,000 crore by the end of 2018-19, is estimated to go up to Rs 1,03,000 crore by March 2020.
However, there is some consolation from the fact that State’s revenue generation has showed an upward trend by May-end marking a growth rate of around 19 per cent over corresponding period of last fiscal year.
The total revenue generation in the first two months of the fiscal has increased to Rs 6,505 crore by May compared to Rs 5,466 crore during the same period in 2018.
Revenue from non-tax sources has also grown by 43.21 per cent with a total collection of Rs 2,247 crore during the period while revenue from own tax sources has grown by 9.25 pc with total collection of Es 4,257 crore.
Significantly, revenue from mining royalty has increased to Rs 1,996 crore against last year’s collection of Rs 1,320 crore by May-end.
The State Government had presented a vote-on-account of Rs 56,921 crore on February 7, 2019 because of the general elections with an allocation of Rs 4,461 crore for Kalia scheme.
As the government has targeted to enhance the number beneficiaries under Kalia to 75 lakh in the State, the allocation under the scheme is likely to go up manifold.
The consultation meeting on 2019-20 annual budget convened by Finance Minister Niranjan Pujari on Monday discussed the issues.
Former finance ministers, experts and representatives different bank, trade and labour organisations maintained that the state government should find out ways to increase revenue generation in view of the growing expenditure.
Former Finance Minister Prafulla Chandra Ghadei maintained that there should be qualitative expenditure. Steps should be taken to ensure that funds spent under different schemes reached the intended beneficiaries and projects are completed in time.
Another former Finance Minister Panchanan Kanungo suggested 10 km-long tree plantation along 400 km coastline as protection from cyclonic storms which hit the state regularly, causing large scale damage to infrastructure.
“This way we can save more money which can be used for other work,” he said.
Pujari said suggestions from experts and former Finance Ministers will be considered. The government had presented a Rs 1,20,028 crore budget for 2018-19 financial year.