DFID to stop budgetary support to Orissa

The Department For International Development (DFID) of the UK government will not provide any direct budgetary support to the state in future, thanks to the instruction of the Centre to this effect.

This was announced by the Kolkata-based British deputy high commissioner, Andrew Hall here today. Hall, who is on a two-day visit to the state, said, the UPA government at the Centre has asked DFID not to give any budgetary support to the state.

However, the DFID can continue its assistance to the state if the latter presented any specific project for funding, he added. Hall could not specify what will be the cut off date for the Centre's instruction to come into effect. DFID had disbursed Rs 225 crore direct budgetary support to Orissa in 2002-03 and had promised to provide another Rs 230 crore on this head this year.

Meanwhile, the development has landed the state government in soup as it had taken into account the DFID assistance in finalisation of its annual plan size at Rs 3250 crore. In the absence of the promised budgetary support, the plan size has to be squeezed, said state finance minister Prafulla Ghadei.

Hall said, Orissa will continue to be the focus of DFID grant to India which is estimated at 300 million pound (Rs 2,400 crore) in the current fiscal against 200 million pound in the last year.

There are four partner states of DFID in India. Besides Orissa, the others are West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.

These states get almost two third of the DFID grant to India with the rest one third going to other national programmes in different states.

Incidentally, the DFID funded schemes in the pipe line in Orissa are much larger than the projects in other states, thus enabling the state to get the lion's share of the DFID grant.

Referring to Orissa's vast mineral deposits, he said, the state could tap UK's expertise in extraction of minerals, particularly coal.

Besides, Orissa could take advantage of expertise of the UK's tourism companies in marketing the state as a tourist destination and development of infrastructure.

He underlined that the state should take steps to attract more British tourists.

Similarly, development of communication network could be another area of cooperation between the UK companies and Orissa, he added. Hall, who scheduled to meet the state chief minister Naveen Patnaik, is expected to discuss these issues along with the progress of various poverty reduction programmes in the state.