The Odisha Budget 2020-21, termed as the ‘Green Budget’, was presented by Finance Minister Niranjan Pujari in a paperless form. As a result, around 75 lakh pages of paper were saved, which is approximately about 1,000 trees. Odisha is now the second state in the country to go green in its assembly session.
While presenting the budget digitally, Pujari stated that the total allocation stood at Rs 1.50 lakh crore as against last year’s 1.39 lakh crore. The division of this year’s budget is as follows:
- Rs 65,655 crore as administrative expenditure
- Rs 74,000 crore for programme expenditure
- Rs 3,200 crore for disaster response fund
- Rs 7,145 crore towards transfers from the state
- Rs 7,700 crore to the health sector in the State
Further, the budget has also allocated 3195 crores for the KALIA scheme, 150 crores for development of infrastructure at Lord Lingaraj temple, 3,208 crores for rebuilding Puri as a world heritage site, and has proposed to hike the MLA LAD fund from Rs 1 crore to Rs 3 crore.
The economic growth of Odisha is estimated at 6.16% compared to the national growth rate of 5%.
Introduction of e-Budgeting, a separate budget mobile app, and QR Code were a few technological highlights of the Budget 2020.