Indian Express,Bhubaneswar, 26.02.2010
The 13th Finance Commission (TFC) has recommended a grant of Rs 78,974.9 crore for the State for the award period from 2010 to 2015. The grant has increased substantially compared to the 12th Finance Commission, which recommended Rs 36,942.8 crore for Orissa.
However, the percentage share of Orissa in Central taxes has decreased by 0.38 per cent, from 5.16 pc to 4.78 pc, in comparison to the 12th Finance Commission. The share of all low income States such as Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh has decreased.
Finance Minister Prafulla Chandra Ghadei described the recommendations of the TFC as disappointing.
The 12th Finance Commission had recommended Rs 31,669.47 crore as the State’s share in Central taxes as against Rs 69,316.1 crore by the TFC.
Compensatory grant of Rs 50,000 crore has been recommended to meet the loss on account of implementation of Goods and Services Tax.
The pre-devolution non-plan revenue deficit of Rs 1,32,141.64 crore projected by the State Government has been ignored by the TFC. It has fixed the deficit at Rs 28,282.67 crore by over-estimating the State’s resources and under-estimating the expenditure like salary, pension and interest payment.
Besides, Rs 9,658.8 crore would be available to the State as grants.
The existing sharing pattern of 75:25 for calamity relief fund has been retained as against the demand of 90:10. However, the corpus has been enhanced to Rs 2,163.75 crore from Rs 1,599.16 crore though the demand was Rs 4,000 crore.
The grant for local bodies has been increased to Rs 3,270.9 crore from Rs 907 crore. The State Government, however, maintained that too many conditionalities would greatly hamper the operational flexibility.
Other grants include Rs 50 crore for eco-restoration of Chilika lake, Rs 400 crore for construction of anganwadi centres, Rs 350 crore for health sector, Rs 500 crore incentive grant for development and upgradation of the distribution system, Rs 70 crore for police training, Rs 100 crore for jails, Rs 65 crore for preservation of monuments and Buddhist heritage, Rs 150 crore for fire services and Rs 60 crore for establishment of market yards.
Besides, the elementary education sector will get Rs 1,016 crore while the forest sector will get Rs 331 crore. The water sector will get Rs 184 crore.
Recommendations for other sectors include Rs 193.6 crore for improvement of justice system, Rs 178.5 crore for issuing UIDs, Rs 30 crore for district innovation, Rs 30 crore for improvement in statistical system and Rs 10 crore for employee and pension data base.
CM unhappy with TFC recommendations
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik expressed dissatisfaction over the recommendations of the Thirteenth Finance Commission (TFC). The recommendations are unfortunately below expectations, he said in a release issued here today.
Orissa’s share has been reduced from 5.16 percent of the total grant announced by the 12th Finance Commission to 4.78 percent by the 13th TFC, he said.
Besides, the State Government’s proposals for adopting a criterion like population below poverty line (BPL), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Scheduled Caste (SC) population and tax efforts have not been taken into consideration by the Commission, he said, adding that it will hamper developmental works of the State.
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