Odisha Records 26% Growth In Budget Expenditure

Bhubaneswar: The state plan expenditure during the financial year 2016-17 has touched Rs.19087crore by September marking a growth of 26% against the corresponding period during the financial year 2015-16.

The Revenue collection from both the own tax and non-tax sources has also crossed Rs.12812 crore.

This was discussed in the all secretaries meeting held under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi at the state secretariat here on Friday.

The plan budget utilization in agriculture and allied sectors has been around Rs.4837 crore up to September, which is around 44% of the budget estimate, said a release.

Similarly, the utilization in infrastructure sector has gone up to around 51% against the spending of 41% during last financial year. In real terms, the expenditure in this sector has touched Rs.5734 crore.

The social sector spending followed the same pattern with utilization crossing Rs.7568 crore against an expenditure of around Rs 6648 crore during the same period of last fiscal.

Padhi advised the departments to revisit the targets set by them and align their action plans accordingly.

Development Commissioner R. Balakrishnan advised the revenue earning departments to take proactive measures for augmenting revenue collection to support the higher plan expenditure.

The secretaries were also advised to scale up work culture in their respective departments and make the best utilization of the new young human resources who have joined the Odisha secretariat service cadre recently.

It may be pertinent to mention that during last 3 months around 940 new youths have joined as ASOs in the State secretariat. They have come from various professional backgrounds like engineering, IT, MBA, personnel management, industrial relations, rural development etc.

The Chief Secretary advised utilizing their talents in the best possible manner through proper motivation and training.