Positive growth in revenue signals revival of Odisha’s economy: Governor Ganeshi Lal
BHUBANESWAR: As the State’s economy was severely hit due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Odisha government introduced one time settlement (OTS) schemes for realisation of arrear revenue and collected Rs 38,760 crore by end of January 2021 which is 7.3 per cent (pc) more than the collection during the same period in the previous financial year.
“The State has been able to achieve positive growth in its own revenue despite the Covid-19 pandemic, which is an indication of recovery of economic activities in the State,” Governor Ganeshi Lal said in his address to the House on Thursday.
Stating that the COVID-19 pandemic posed a unique challenge to Odisha’s public finances, the Governor said the crisis resulted in a shrinkage of fiscal space which compelled the government to re-prioritise its public expenditure to meet the higher demand for spending on COVID-19 management, creating livelihood opportunities, promoting agriculture as well as the industry and MSME sectors for employment generation.
“About Rs 2800 crore was ploughed back through mopping up of government money parked in bank accounts,” he said.
The Governor said as a temporary measure, the corpus of the contingency fund was enhanced from Rs 400 crore to Rs 2,000 crore to provide the required fiscal space for aggressive COVID response.
Stating that the Government adopted an innovative way to avail cheaper sources of financing from surplus cash balance in dedicated funds like CAMPA and OMBADC to maintain required liquidity, Lal said government also exercised the option for repayment cost of open market borrowing to borrow Rs 2,500 crore from the corpus of consolidated sinking fund.
“This provided the much needed liquidity during the crisis,” he said.
The government announced a special COVID package of Rs 289 crore support MSMEs during COVID-19 which included interest subvention to 1.76 lakh units assisted under the Emergency Credit Line Guarantee scheme.
Besides, a provision of Rs 100 crore was made for enterprises with integration of COVID-19 assistance package and top up subsidy of 15 pc of the project cost was provided to food processing enterprises under Prime Minister’s Formalisation of Micro Food Processing Enterprises during the crisis.
The Governor said the government has also undertaken a plethora of initiatives to boost tourism policy, infrastructure development in and around major tourist destinations, eco-retreats at Bhitarkanika National Park, Daringbadi hill station, Hirakud reservoir, Konark’s Ramchandi beach and Satkosia tiger reserve besides, eco-tourism camps at Satkosia and Simlipal.