By Nageshwar Patnaik in Bhubaneswar, February 18, 2015 :

The Odisha Budget 2015-16 appears to have lacked focus and has nothing new to offer. Most of the provisions made in the budget merely took forward last year’s half-completed projects as a substantial part of last year’s budget amount had been left unspent.

The main complaint seemed to be that no major social sector-friendly initiatives had been proposed, when the Naveen Patnaik government has been asserting that it is committed to inclusive development.

Finance minister seems to have chosen safer route by not fiddling with tax rates and bringing cosmetic changes in the budget. Hampered by resource crunch and fall in the collection of revenue, Amat did not dare to initiate bold measures to boost up the sagging economy.

The state plan size has gone up by only three per cent from Rs 38,810 crore in the current fiscal to Rs 40, 150 crore in 2015-16. The government will borrow Rs 7,356 crore to fund the expenditure.

For a developing state like Odisha with 83% still living in rural areas and 60% dependent on agriculture for their sustenance, the FM has left this volatile sector to further languish. The budget outlay for agriculture and allied sectors has been fixed at Rs.10,903 crore for 2015-16 compared to  Rs.9542.22 crore in 2014-15 up by only 14.26% against 33% rise in budget allocation in 2014-15 over the previous year.

The share of agricultural sector in the total budget allocation is 12.90% which is not significantly different from the earlier budget. It is noted that the budgetary share of agriculture sector was 11.87% in 2013-14 and 11.9 % in 2014-15. The budget for agriculture department is Rs.3124.38 Cr which is 28.65 % of the total budget for agricultural sector. The share of the agriculture department was 30% in 2013-14(BE) and 34% in 2014-15.

Similarly the budgetary allocation of Rs 3855.88 crore for health and family welfare department is Rs 66.86 crore less than Rs 3922.74 crore allocated in 2014-15.  The share of the health budget came down by 0.32 % (4.56 %) of the total budget which was 4.88 % in 2015-14. For the next fiscal, as share to the Gross State Domestic Product [GSDP], it is 1.11% which was 1.20% in 2014-15.

Budget for School and Mass Education (S&ME) Department has marginally increased from Rs 9327.12 crore in 2014-15 (BE) to Rs 9979.49 crore in 2015-16 (BE). The increase in budget allocation is very marginal as compared to the trend in last five years budget allocation for the department.

As a percentage of GSDP the education budget is only 2.86% with a decrease of 0.1% over the previous year 2014-15 (BE) against preferred allocation of 6% of GSDP to fulfill the commitment under MDGs.

A large number of the marginalized section of people still living in sheer poverty, the FM has not proposed anything innovative and drastic to ensure inclusive development.

In fact, the budget allocation for social development of Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Castes, Other Backward Classes and Minorities, has decreased from 2456.29 crore  in 2014-15 BE to Rs 2372.34  crore in 2015-16 (BE) this is (3.42%) i.e Rs 84 crore  less than the current fiscal.  More so, the budget share of the department has declined by 0.26 % (2.82 %) of the total budget which was 3.06 % in 2015-14.

Still worse is the allocation to Women and Child Development department, which has come down from Rs 4666.65 crore in 2014-15 (BE) to Rs 4162.62 crore in 2015-16 (BE). Allocation for Special Nutrition programme under this department which is meant for providing supplementary foods under ICDS programme has decreased from Rs 83.80 crore to Rs 70.10 crore.

In fact, the whole budget exercise by the FM is just old wine in new bottle.