By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, March 31, 2022: Odisha Finance Minister Niranjan Pujari on Wednesday presented the interim budget (vote-on-account) for the year 2022-23 with an outlay of Rs 2 lakh crore, up by 17.6 per cent compared to the annual budget for 2021-22, which was Rs 1.70 lakh crore.

The vote-on-account of Rs 1,10,000 crore for the first four months of 2022-23 included Rs 1 lakh crore for the government sector, administrative expenditure of Rs 89,620 crore, disaster relief fund of Rs 3210 crore and transfers from the state to the tune of Rs 7,170 crore.

FILE PHOTO                              The vote on account was required for expenditure on payment of salary, pension, interest, calamities expenditure and other ongoing schemes and programmes as the full-fledged budget could not be presented due to the panchayat and urban polls in February and March, said Pujari.

“The proposed programme budget size for 2022-23 is 33 per cent higher than that of 2021-22,” he said, adding that the state economic growth rate in 2022-23 is estimated to be 9-9.5 per cent compared to the national growth rate of 7.8 per cent.

A total of Rs 12,241 crore has been allocated for the health sector in 2022-23, of which Rs 5753 crore is for the first four months.

There is a provision of Rs 12,241 crore for overall health spending by the state government, which is 6.1 per cent of the total size of the budget during 2022-23. “Ten new medical colleges have been set up in the last five years, taking the total to 13, and in the coming years around 2000 MBBS doctors will be graduating per year. We have also more than doubled the sanctioned strength of nurses and paramedic staff during the last five years,” stated Pujari.

The 2022-23 budget has effected a 14 percent hike for provisioning urban amenities and basic services to citizens dwelling in urban areas allocating a sum of Rs 3,964 crore for Urban Development in the State.

“Despite adversities, Odisha economy is expected to register growth in the range of 9.0 to 9.5 % in 2022-23. Our focus on industries as well as MSME sector, social sector, employment generation and higher investment in infrastructure is likely to help the State economy register a nominal growth of beyond 12 % in 2022-23”, Pujari said referring to the adverse impact of Covid-19 pandemic.

Total allocation of Rs. 1,635 crore has been proposed for 2022-23 (BE) for the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise sector for setting up world class infrastructure and incentivise the industries, MSME and Start-ups.

There is provision of Rs. 20,344 crore for different schemes in Agriculture and Allied Sector during 2022-23. This includes Rs. 1,874 crore of direct benefit transfers under KALIA Scheme, Rs. 300 crore of interest free loan for fertiliser and seed, Rs. 688 crore under Crop Production Management etc.

Rs. 26,492 crore has been provided under the education sector during 2022-23, which includes Rs. 521 crore under Mo School Abhiyan, Rs. 439 crore for Smart Class Rooms in selected 100 schools of excellence, Rs. 1,109 crore of GIA to Non-Govt High Schools, Rs. 420 crore for Odisha Adarsha Vidyalaya and other programmes.