Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, Feb 6: The council of ministers Friday approved the draft annual budget proposal of `Rs 85,132 crore for the 2015-16 financial year, which is hardly Rs 5,000crore more than last year’s annual budget.
The Assembly had in 2014-15 passed an annual budget of Rs 80,100crore, which was 33 per cent higher than that of 2013-14. Finance minister Pradip Amat presented the budget proposal before the council, which met under the leadership of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Friday evening. The council approved it after discussing it for an hour, sources said.
The council approved the draft state plan outlay of Rs 44,506.25 crore and non-plan outlay of Rs 40,150 crore, according to a senior official of the finance department. The state plan and non-plan expenditure of the current financial year were pegged at Rs 40,711.01 crore and Rs 38,810crore respectively.
As part of the budget proposal, the council of ministers approved the draft proposals of Rs 447.45 crore under the central plan and Rs 28.35 crore under the central sponsored plan, sources revealed.
In the last budget, these figures were Rs 609.42 crore and Rs 9.15 crore, respectively.
“The shutdown of mining activities has badly affected state revenue because of which we have witnessed a revenue shortfall this year. As such, the draft budget figure was increased by only Rs 5,000 crore,” said the official.
The state plan outlay for the school and mass education department, which gets the lion share of the annual budget, has been proposed at Rs 4,004.26 crore, according to sources.
