Bhubaneswar: Adding another feather to its cap, Odisha has secured third position in the country in maintaining transparency in budget making.
This was revealed at a high-level review meeting held under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy Tuesday in virtual mode.
Finance secretary Ashok Kumar Meena said that Transparency International in its annual report ranked Odisha in 3rd position next to Assam (1st) and Andhra Pradesh (2nd) with regard to transparency in budget making process.
Odisha secured 66 raking points while Andhra Pradesh got 67 and Assam 70. Other states in top five ranks include Jharkhand and Bihar which scored 60 and 59 points respectively, he said.
While complimenting the progressive procedural reforms achieved by Finance department in the matters of budget making, financial management and financial regulation, the Chief Secretary directed the department to work out a ‘composite index’ including agriculture, fishery and animal husbandry sectors for tracking States’ economy during pre-Covid, Covid and post-Covid scenario.
He also directed the officials concerned to focus on surrender of the funds lying idle in different government departments.
It was decided to include the indicators representing agriculture, fishery, animal husbandry, mining, GST, motor vehicle tax, electricity consumption, VAT on Non-GST goods, excise duty, total man-days created, aggregate bank credit, unemployment rate, revenue position, fiscal deficit/surplus, debt/GSDP ratio in the ‘composite index’.
It was also decided to use other high frequency data for a comprehensive objective raking. Tripathy advised the officials to apply the ‘composite index’ for assessing the states’ economic trend on monthly and quarterly basis.
