Odisha to maximise revenue collection

To meet the shortfall in revenue generation estimated at above Rs 6,000 crore during this fiscal, Odisha government today said its approach would be to maximise collection of arrears pending on different PSUs by resolving some court cases.
"Steps are being taken to resolve the pending cases of different state PSUs and central PSUs. Once the cases are cleared, the state can collect a good amount of revenue," said Finance minister Pradip Kumar Amat after presiding over the pre-budget meeting here.
Former finance ministers, former finance secretaries, senior officials of the finance department and others took part in the meeting.

The finance department has already asked state-owned Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC) to pay Rs 500 crore ad-hoc dividend for the current fiscal. The amount of arrear dues on different PSUs estimated above Rs 4,000 crore.
The state is also expecting an additional Rs 1,800 crore revenue from the mining sector due to revision of mines royalty. This could help to bridge the gap in the revenue collection in mining sector, Amat said.
Stating that the revenue collection this time dropped due to lower mining revenue, slower tax collection and lesser than expected flow of funds from the Centre, Amat pointed out that the state has already sustained a financial loss of about Rs 200 crore due to reduction of price of petrol and diesel.

It was estimated that the total revenue collection including state's own revenue, share from Central taxes and grants-in-aid, could drop to Rs 60,346.96 crore from budgetary estimate of Rs 67,146.96 crore, sources said.
The biggest drop in state revenue comes from cut in spending by the Union government resulting in Rs 3,500 crore reduction in the account of grants-in-aid, they said adding that about Rs 2,300 crore less collection could be experienced in state's own tax and non-tax revenue due to slump in mining royalty collections.
"Basing on the outcome of the meeting, the state government would prepare the full-fledged budget, Amat said adding that the budget size would not be affected despite the fall in revenue.