After being in the comfort zone of revenue surplus for consecutive last four years, the state government is finding it hard to arrange resources to finance this year’s state plan outlay which is fixed at Rs 9500 crore for 2009-10.
The negative growth in the collection of tax and non-tax revenue in the first quarter of the current fiscal has forced the state finance minister, Prafulla Chandra Ghadai, to call for a joint initiative by various revenue generating departments.
Sources said, the total collections of tax and non-tax revenue in the state was Rs 2078 crore in the first quarter of the current fiscal compared to Rs 2119 crore in the corresponding period of the last fiscal. The decline in the tax revenue was about 1 percent while the decline in the non-tax revenue was about 1.98 percent. However, the positive growth in the collection of commercial taxes in July has given some consolation to the state finance minister.
The cumulative growth of commercial tax collection till the end of July 2009 was 0.54 percent compared to a negative growth of 2.75 percent by the end of June this year. The increased salary bill following implementation of the revised pay scale as per the recommendation of the sixth pay commission and the discouraging trends in the collection of revenue have compounded the problems of the state government. Though the government planned to borrow Rs 4463.84 crore during the current fiscal, this is likely to increase further in case the revenue receipts fallshort of the target.
In view of the emerging situation, the finance minister has asked the revenue earning departments like revenue, energy, steel and mines, water resources, transport, general administration, excise and housing and urban development to look at alternative sources to augment collection of revenue during the current fiscal. As a step in this direction, the revenue and disaster management department has been asked to increase the stamp duty and registration fee.
Similarly, the water resources department was urged to start joint inspection of the areas which have been newly irrigated for fixing the water rate. While the steel and mines department was advised to increase the collection of mining revenue by checking illegal mining, the transport department was advised to check overloading of commercial vehicles and collect penalties.
The finance department will extend the required co-operation in these matters. The housing and the urban development department was asked to revise the tariff of water supply and expedite the payment of dues owed by the Orissa State Housing Board (OSHB) and Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) to the state government.
