Bhubaneswar: The state government has started the exercise for preparation of Supplementary Budget for financial year 2020-21 which will be presented in Assembly November 20.
As the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns have crippled the state economy, the Finance department is busy prioritising schemes and programmes which would need sufficient fund.
Finance Secretary Ashok Kumar Meena has recently written a letter to all the secretaries in this regard.
Covid-19 pandemic has posed a tremendous challenge to every sphere of governance, the state has been fighting the pandemic since March 2020 and the battle against the virus is likely to continue for some more time.
“While priorities of the state government in the medium-term still remain to achieve sustainable development goals, effective Covid management, saving lives and providing livelihoods to the people will remain priority,” Meena said.
Keeping this in view, he has asked all the secretaries to prepare their proposals accordingly.
Due to pandemic, the state government’s revenue generation and spending have taken a nosedive. Besides, fund flow from Union government including GST compensation has dried up. Therefore, the supplementary budget would be a revised one of the annual budget, sources said.
As per state government’s estimation, the economy is likely to contract by about 1-2 per cent in the current FY and it is expected to register a growth of about 7 per cent during FY 2021-22.
Considering the likely level of Central assistance and expected receipts from own revenue, the estimated shortfall in revenue during the current year would be of the order of 20-25 per cent. Therefore, the state may have to depend on higher borrowing during the current year to finance higher spending on pandemic management.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has recently said his government would give emphasis to credit to farmers, Mission Shakti, self-help groups and MSMEs. Besides, sufficient fund is needed for execution of major projects taken up in Puri under Augmentation of Basic Amenities and Development of Heritage and Architecture (ABADHA) scheme and Ekamra Kshetra Yojana.
So, the supplementary budget would be prepared keeping all the above things in view, the source said.
Last year, the state government had presented a supplementary budget of Rs 8,126.32 crore in addition to the Annual Budget of Rs 1.39 lakh crore. For the current year, Finance Minister Niranjan Pujari had presented a Rs 1.50 lakh-crore Budget in the Assembly apart from a separate Agriculture Budget of Rs 19,408 crore.