Ghadei presents Rs 31,252 cr tax-free Budget

ORISSA BUDGET 2006-07

Orissa Finance Minister Prafulla Chandra Ghadei today presented a tax-free balanced Budget in the Orissa Assembly.

Though the total size of the budget is estimated at Rs 31,252 crore, the proposed outgo in the consolidated fund is pegged at Rs 19553.58 crore. With income under this head put at Rs 19893.29 crore, the consolidated fund has a surplus of Rs 339.71 crore.

"The thrust of the Budget is on growth, development, efficiency and social equity," said the finance minister.

Outlining the focus areas of it, he said, the budget has laid emphasis on provision of adequate funds towards state share for centrally sponsored schemes and completion of projects. This will help the state to get more sanction from the Centre and also accrue benefits out of the pending projects, Ghadei added.

On sectoral basis, agriculture, irrigation, infrastructure development, tribal welfare and social services like health and education have got prominence over other sectors in the Budget.

Agriculture being the main stay of the states's economy, to increase irrigation coverage, the government has hiked allocation for water resources department by Rs 260 crore, Ghadei said.

Similarly, with the state poised for massive industrialisation following the rush of investors to set up the steel and aluminium industry, to facilitate the investment in industrial projects, the government has laid emphasis on infrastructure projects and allocated Rs 547.89 crore in the Budget for repair and maintainance of roads under non-plan expenditure compared to Rs 170.59 crore in the current year.

The Budget being presented in the backdrop of Kalinga Nagar incident in which 12 tribals were killed in police firing while protesting their displacement due to an industrial project, the government has increased the allocation for SC, ST development in the state by Rs Rs 65 crore to Rs 432 crore to assuage feelings the community which has turned against the ruling combine following the tragic event.

On the fiscal management side, the budget has sought to bring down the revenue deficit to Rs 474.80 crore from Rs 516 crore in the revised budget estimate for 2005-06.

As per the provisions of the fiscal responsibility and budget management (FRBM) bill enacted last year, the government is supposed to reduce revenue deficit to zero by 2008-09.

However the fiscal deficit as a percentage of gross state domestic product has gone up to 2.4 per cent from 2.23 per cent this year. The FRBM act suggests bringing down fiscal deficit below 3 per cent of GSDP by 2008-09.