BHUBANESWAR: The council of ministers on Monday approved the annual budget of Rs 2.3 lakh crore for 2023-24 for the state. The budget, to be the highest ever in Odisha, will be placed in the Assembly by Finance Minister Niranjan Pujari on February 24. The government had placed a budget of Rs 2 lakh crore for 2022-23. The increase in the budget proposals for 2023-24 will be about 15 per cent.
The meeting of council of ministers followed the cabinet meeting presided over by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in which 15 proposals were approved. Chief secretary Suresh Chandra Mahapatra said considering growing demand for drinking water in Bhubaneswar, the cabinet approved over `286 crore for setting up a water treatment plant in the city.
Since the present capacity of water treatment plants has reached saturation, the cabinet approved the proposal to set up a water treatment plant at Mundali with a capacity of 130 million litre per day. The project will be implemented by the Water Corporation of Odisha. The project will be executed by LC lnfra Projects Private Limited on Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract including operation and maintenance for 5 years.
The cabinet also approved the proposal for creation of leave and training reserve (LTR) posts in various categories of teaching posts in government secondary schools under School and Mass Education department. As per the proposal, 15 percent of the total cadre strength of 40,166 of teachers, totalling 6,025 posts, will be created to meet the requirement of teachers’ unavailability due to leave, training and on medical grounds.
Besides, cabinet approved a proposal to construct 237 boys’ hostels for Odisha Adarsha Vidyalayas at a cost of Rs 1,000.14 crore. The rough estimate per hostel with 100-bed capacity will be Rs 4.22 crore. Mahapatra said the proposal to lease out 40 acre land in favour of Shri Vile Parle Kelavani Mandal (SVKM) Trust at Goudakashipur in Jatni for establishment of Shri Vile Parle Kelavani Mandal (SVKM) University was approved. The proposed university will function as learning resource centre and provide national and global participation in higher education. The trust will keep 30 per cent of the seats reserved for the underprivileged students of Odisha.
A proposal for compensation to next of kin on account of death of prisoners in jails was approved. The compensation amount will be decided subsequently. Amendment of the Odisha Civil Service (Pension) Rules, 1992 was approved to allow family pension to transgender child in the event of death of a government servant/pensioner.