BHUBANESWAR: Odisha Police reached a little over 55 per cent of its programme expenditure target in the 2025-26 financial year, with major police reforms and infrastructure projects reporting critically low spending.
Some expenditure heads saw last-minute rush in funds utilisation. While expenditure on police buildings, barracks and surveillance equipment was significantly below par by the year-end, the wireless equipment spending zoomed in March - from Rs 1.82 crore in February-end to Rs 26.99 crore when March came to a close, revealed Home department data available with TNIE.
As per the data, Odisha Police spent just about 55.62 per cent of its funds under state sector schemes (SSS). By March 31, out of Rs 852.57 crore, the police organisation utilised just Rs 474.21 crore.
The police buildings programme, one of the largest components of the state police’s capital expenditure, recorded a sub-par spending during financial year 2025-2026. Utilisation of funds to build non-residential buildings, which include police stations, offices and operational facilities, was 55.98 per cent of the Rs 90 crore allocation (revised estimate), leaving over Rs 39 crore unspent.
Similarly, spending on residential barracks, critical for housing police, was only Rs 32.33 crore out of the Rs 66 crore allocation with utilisation rate pegged at a meagre 48.98 per cent.
The spending data showed that expenditure on technology and surveillance was abysmally low. The CCTV network scheme, allocated Rs 76 crore to expand camera surveillance across urban and sensitive areas, recorded zero expenditure through the entire year. Predictive policing and crime mapping driven by artificial intelligence allocated Rs 10 crore under a forward-looking crime prevention framework also saw no expenditure.
The Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) scheme, which drives digital case management and inter-agency data sharing across police stations, utilised only 50.85 per cent of its Rs 23.58 crore allocation. The forensic science, meant to strengthen evidence analysis capabilities, saw a utilisation of only Rs 15.85 crore out of Rs 32.75 crore, logging a 48.40 per cent expenditure.
The Emergency Response Support System (ERSS), which powers the 112 helpline and emergency dispatch, was a notable exception though, achieving 88.49 per cent utilisation of its Rs 133.35 crore allocation. “Operational schemes such as ERSS tend to show higher spending because of recurring cost, while capital-intensive technology projects require procurement cycles which the Odisha Police has failed to complete within the financial year,” sources familiar with the subject pointed out.
In case of centrally- sponsored schemes (CSS), expenditure on Left-wing extremism (LWE)-affected areas showed mixed but largely underwhelming spending. The security related expenditure scheme achieved a relatively strong 90.21 per cent utilisation of its Rs 81.12 crore allocation, suggesting that operational anti-Naxal expenditure was maintained.
However, the Special Central Assistance (SCA) scheme, which funds infrastructure and development in LWE-affected districts, recorded a dismal 14.19 per cent utilisation of its Rs 80 crore allocation, leaving over Rs 68 crore unspent meant for development of LWE-affected areas.