Bhubaneswar: Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi Monday presented a Rs 2.90-lakh crore state budget for the 2025-26 fiscal with focus on infrastructure, agriculture, and irrigation.
Majhi, who also holds the finance portfolio, said the budget’s special thrust is on transformative sectors like infrastructure, urban development, agriculture and irrigation, capital investment, port-led development, industrialisation and sports.
This was the first full-fledged budget of the BJP government after the party came to power in the state last year. Majhi had presented an interim budget of Rs 2.65 lakh crore for the 2024-25 fiscal in July last year.
Speaking on the provisions of the budget, he said an outlay of Rs 1,70,000 crore was meant for programme expenditure, which is more than 58.62 per cent of the total budget size.
The capital outlay was Rs 65,012 crore, which is 6.11 per cent of the GSDP.
“The proportion of capital expenditure to total budget is the highest among all major states in the country,” Majhi claimed.
The chief minister said the allocation of Rs 37,838 crore for agriculture and allied sectors is an increase of about 12 per cent over the previous year.
“The revenue surplus is projected at 3 per cent of the GSDP, while the fiscal deficit is projected at 3.2 per cent of the GSDP. Year-end debt stock is expected to remain at 12.7 per cent of the GSDP. Therefore, the annual budget is fully fiscal responsibility and budget management compliant,” he said.
Noting that around 48 per cent of the state’s workforce depends on agriculture and 80 per cent of people live in rural areas, Majhi said his government allocated Rs 37,838 crore for the farm and allied sectors.
He also said the estimates for the sector include an allocation of Rs 2,020 crore for ‘CM Kisan Yojana’ and Rs 600 crore for the ‘Shree Anna Abhiyan’ for the promotion of millets.
Among other departments, finance got the maximum of Rs 63,511.91 crore followed by Rs 31,185.47 crore for school & mass education, Rs 28,451 crore for panchayat raj & drinking water, Rs 22,741 crore for health & family welfare, Rs 15,223 crore for women & child development, and Rs 14,894 crore for water resources.
Majhi announced at least 16 new initiatives in the budget, which include a Rs 30-crore Shree Jagannath Darshan Yojana for devotees with limited financial resources.
“Such devotees can travel to Puri, visit the Shree Jagannath Temple, and have the ‘Mahaprasad’ free of cost,” Majhi said.
He also announced the Maa Tarini Temple complex development plan in Keonjhar with an estimated outlay of Rs 225 crore.
The CM allocated Rs 820 crore for tourism with a focus on infrastructure development, community empowerment, and sustainable tourism practices.
Some of the other initiatives announced in the budget include the Antyodaya Gruha Yojana (Rs 2,603 crore), Subhadra Surakhya Yojana (Rs 153 crore), the Southern Odisha Development Council (Rs 200 crore), Swachha Odisha programme (Rs 261 crore) and Samrudha Sahara (Rs 400 crore).
