Officials from the state government have revealed that Odisha’s revenue collection until October this fiscal has grown by 2.27 percent as against the first seven months of the last financial year. This outperformance has been recorded despite the adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic slowdown, an official said.
The data was disclosed during a meeting of all secretaries chaired by Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy. He reviewed the revenue generation from both own tax and non-tax sources which has cumulatively grown 2.27 percent as per October this fiscal.
The total revenue generation by the end of October 2019 was around Rs 25,002.84 crore which increased to Rs 25,571.42 crore during the current financial year, the official said.
The revenue generated from non-tax sources between April to October 2019 was Rs 7,533.26 crore. This number rose to Rs 9,296.60 crore in the same period of this fiscal, resulting in a 23.41 percent increase.
Finance Secretary A K Meena informed PTI that the rise in the non-tax revenue generation is primarily due to mine auctions. While there is an overall growth of 2.27 percent in revenue generation by October end, own tax revenue collection declined by minus 6.7 percent, he said responding to a question.
Notably, even as lockdowns were in force, budget utilisation crossed Rs 51,000 crore by October 2020, and the highest utilisation of around Rs 26,000 crore was made in the social sector.
Meanwhile, the chief secretary advised various departments to focus on speedy implementation of the livelihood and infrastructure projects. The departments of water resources, rural development, works, housing & urban development have been directed to prioritise identified strategic projects and complete those within the scheduled time.
Tripathy assured the departments that funds will be made available for project implementation. Additionally, he instructed the departments to furnish their budget input by December end so that the preparation of the 2021-22 annual budget can begin.