Bhubaneswar: The Centre has provided loans and advances to the tune of Rs 17,670.07 crore to the Odisha government during past eight years, Union Minister of State (MoS) for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said in Rajya Sabha recently.
He said the Centre has released the loans and advances in between 2014-15 and 2021-22 financial years.
While Rs 529.10 crore has been provided to Odisha during the financial year 2014-15, Rs 739.43 crore released in 2015-16 and Rs 902.98 crore in the next fiscal, Chaudhary said.
The borrowing amount fell down to Rs 848.35 crore in 2017-18. The state has been provided with Rs 983.06 crore and Rs 969.64 crore as loans and advances during the 2018- 19 and 2019-20 fiscal respectively.
The borrowing amount has increased substantially during the financial years 2020-21 and 2021-22 as the state got back to back loans from the Centre in lieu of a shortfall in GST compensation.
The Centre has released Rs 5,127.52 crore in 2020-21 and Rs 7,569.99 crore (provisional) in the year 2021-22, as per the Minister’s reply. By the end of March 2021, the total outstanding loan of Odisha against Centre was Rs 11,998.09 crore, he added.
In another written reply, Chaudhary said 15th Finance Commission recommended that the normal limit for net borrowings of state governments may be fixed at 4 percent of Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) in 2021- 22, 3.5 per cent in 2022-23 and be maintained at 3 percent of GSDP from 2023-24 to 2025-26.
The commission has also recommended an extra annual borrowing space for the states at 0.50 per cent of their GSDP in between 2021-22 to 2024-25 fiscals, based on performance criteria in the power sector.
Based on the recommendation of the Finance Commission, Net Borrowing Ceiling (NBC) of states for the financial year 2021-22 was fixed at 4 per cent of GSDP while the same for 2022-23 financial year has been finalised at 3.5 per cent of the GSDP, he said.
PNN
