BHUBANESWAR: Per Capita debt burden has more than doubled in last 10 years in Odisha. From Rs 9,144.40 in 2011-12, per head debt burden reached Rs 23,761.83 by the end of 2020-21 financial year. Finance Minister Niranjan Pujari who informed this in the State Assembly on Monday also said that State’s debt burden will reach Rs 1.22 lakh crore by the end of 2021-22 fiscal.
According to a preliminary report of the Auditor General, Odisha, he said, the debt burden had already touched Rs 1.04 lakh crore (by the month of July in fiscal 2020-21) which is 17.8 per cent of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP).In its status paper on public debt released during the Odisha Budget 2021-22 presentation, the State government had announced that debt burden will climb up to Rs 1.25 lakh crore by end of 2021-22. The gross debt was expected to rise from 20.91 per cent of the GSDP in 2020-21 to approximately 22.46 per cent of the GSDP by the end 2023-24.
However, the government appears to have arrested the debt stock to 17.8 per cent of the GSDP midway through 2021-22 financial year which seems a positive sign for the pandemic-hit State economy.The mid-financial year assessment of the debt stock which was pegged at Rs 1.06 lakh crore has also fallen to Rs 1.04 lakh crore, the Minister stated.
He had announced in the budget paper that the State will have to borrow Rs 18,465 crore during 2021-22 to finance different programmes and other day to day activities. Sources, however, maintained that the figure will be revised as implementation of different programmes other than those in the livelihood sector had come to a standstill during the last one and a half year because of the lockdowns and shutdowns during the two waves of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Since the State economy was badly hit due to the Covid-19, the annual credit plan was revised to Rs 1.10 lakh crore for implementation of priority sector programmes with an increase of around 22.5 per cent over the target of 2020-21.Sources maintain that post-Covid, the State economy is likely to be less impacted because of the government’s focus on industries as well as MSME sector, social sector, employment generation, and higher investment in infrastructure. The State government had maintained that the economy will grow in the range of 10 per cent to 11 per cent during 2021-22, from the lower base of this year.