BHUBANESWAR: The interim report of 15th Finance Commission does not have good news for Odisha. The State is not going to benefit from the transfer of funds which will be 4.629 per cent of the divisible pool. As the divisible pool of Central taxes has shrunk by almost Rs 59,000 crore, this is likely to reduce Odisha’s share by about Rs 3,000 crore. Since this is only an interim report, everything will be clear in the final report. However, the signals are giving headache to the Government as the Budget making process has begun.
Allocation under State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) has improved with Rs 28,983 crore earmarked for all States. Odisha, which is prone to natural calamities, has been allotted SDRF of Rs 2,139 crore, out of which Central share will be Rs 1,604 crore and State share will be Rs 535 crore. The Finance Commission has introduced a new concept of Disaster Risk Index (DRI) in its interim report which has been developed through a quantitative exercise assigning scores to the probability of hazards striking states and the extent of vulnerability. Odisha has scored 90 out of 100 in DRI topping the list of vulnerable states.
There are four major hazards which affect different parts of the country - floods, drought, cyclone and earthquake. The DRI assigns a maximum score of 15 to each of these four hazards, constituting a total of 60. Depending upon the level of probability of a hazard, States have been assigned scores of 0,5,10 and 15 in increasing order. In addition, all States have their share of smaller hazards, which affect communities on a local basis. In view of their continuous impacts, all States have been assigned an equal score of 10 for these smaller hazards, bringing the maximum score to 70.
Scores for different hazards have been assigned as Flood Score, Drought Score, Cyclone Score and Earthquakes Score. The poverty points have been assigned based on the below poverty line population of each State in 2011-12 (Tendulkar Methodology). States with a poverty rate of 26 per cent and above have been assigned highest score of 30 while those below 13 pc have got 10 points. The rest of the States, between 13 to 26 pc BPL population have got 20 points.
Odisha has received full marks, 15 each in floods, drought and cyclone while it got five marks for earthquake. In others also the State got full mark of 10. The State has also got full 30 for poverty points. While the State has got 60 out of 70 in DRI, including poverty points its score has gone up to 90 out of 100.The closest to Odisha is Bihar which has got 80 marks followed by 70 marks each for Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.
Worrying facts