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Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is scheduled to meet Union finance minister Arun Jaitley on Monday to discuss about Odisha’s finances.
“On this trip to Delhi, I will be meeting Union finance minister Arun Jaitley on matters relating to Odisha’s finances,” he told reporters here before leaving for New Delhi.
Though Patnaik did not spell out the agenda for talks, he is likely to voice Odisha's discontent over the revised criteria adopted by the 14th Finance Commission for horizontal transfer of funds.
Even though the share of states in the net proceeds of sharable central taxes has been increased to 42 per cent from the level of 32 per cent, the share of Odisha is 4.642 per cent of the divisible pool, down from 4.779 per cent.
According to its own calculations, Odisha is set to lose Rs 4,600 crore during 2015-16 and 2019-20 owing to the revised criteria adopted by the Commission for horizontal transfer of funds.
The 14th Finance Commission has recommended Rs 1,84,070 crore as the state’s share in the net proceeds of the central taxes and duties which is 4.642 per cent of the divisible pool. Had the Commission adopted the previous criteria, the state would have been eligible to get a share of 5.35 per cent of the sharable pool amounting to Rs 2,11,228 crore.
The fall in relative share of Odisha is due to deletion of the criterion ‘fiscal discipline’ and inclusion of a new criterion called demographic change (population as per 2011 Census). Besides, in the income distance criterion, the sharp rise in per capita income has affected the state's share.
The revised criteria have meant that share of states like Goa, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Punjab and Kerala has increased. As per the reworked criteria, population has 17.5 per cent weightage while demographic change has 10 per cent. Income distance, area and forest cover bear weightage of 50 per cent, 15 per cent and 7.5 per cent respectively.
