BHUBANESWAR : With Odisha emerging as the third top state in terms of best practices in budget making process as per the Transparency International report, the Finance department is planning to use composite index for assessing the State’s economy on monthly basis.
Odisha has secured 66 ranking points against 67 points by Andhra Pradesh and 70 points of Assam. Other states in top-5 ranking included Jharkhand and Bihar who scored 60 and 59 ranking points respectively. This was discussed at a a high level review meeting on economic indexing held under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy here on Tuesday on digital mode.
State Finance secretary Ashok Kumar Meena said Transparency International in its annual edition posed Odisha in third rank next to Assam (1st) and Andhra Pradesh (2nd) with regard to transparency in budget making process.
While complementing the progressive procedural reforms achieved by Finance department in the matters of budget making, financial management and financial regulation complementing to 5T framework, the Chief Secretary advised the department to work out a ‘composite index’ including agriculture, fishery and animal husbandry sectors for tracking the State’s economy during pre-Covid, Covid and post-Covid scenario.
As revenue income has slowed down considerably due to the pandemic, all departments were asked to give special attention to wasteful expenditure and surrender funds lying unutilised.The meeting deliberated on different indicators of this ‘composite index’ being prepared with technical support from the Center of Excellence for Fiscal Policy and Taxation (CEFT) at XIMB.
It was decided to include the indicators representing agriculture, fishery, animal husbandry, mining, GST, motor vehicle tax, electricity duty, VAT on non-GST goods, excise duty, total man-days created, aggregate bank credit, unemployment rate, revenue position, fiscal deficit/surplus, debt/GSDP ratio.
It was also decided to use other high frequency data for a comprehensive objective raking and assessing the State’s economic trend on monthly and quarterly basis. Development Commissioner Suresh Chandra Mohapatra, Additional Secretary (Finance) Roop Narayan Das, Additional Secretary (Finance) Satyapriya Ratha and senior officers of Finance department participated in the deliberations.