By Nageshwar Patnaik in Bhubaneswar, June 11, 2018: Odisha’s annual budget was only Rs 1.77 crore for the year 1936-37 which has increased to Rs 1,20,028 crore in 2018-19, according to a special booklet on 80-years of Odisha Budget.

Odisha became a separate province under the British Rule in 1936.

Incidentally, Odisha has become the maiden state in India to chronicle and deliberate on its fiscal journey and growth of the last 82 years in this special booklet titled ‘80 Years of Odisha Budget- a Commemorative Volume’.

Releasing the booklet on Monday, chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Monday said, “This compilation is an effort to present the journey of Odisha in these 80 years through facts, figures and pictorial representation. Odisha is the first state in the country to bring out such a compilation.”

The compilation will be useful for scholars, researches and policy makers, he added.

The 436 page book with five chapters also reflected fiscal imbalance in the state’s economy such as high fiscal revenue and primary deficits throughout the 1990s and in the ensuing decade till 2003-04. A possible driver was the mismatch between the expenditure needs and the revenue collection of the state, the book mentioned.

“When Odisha became a state in 1936, the budget was only Rs 1.77 crore. When we took over the government in year 2000, the budget had only been Rs 14,000 crore. Today, the budget is Rs 1, 20, 000 crore,” he remarked.

Eighty years is a long time and phenomenal journey for the state. “We have achieved milestones during this period,” Patnaik said.

The book has also documented interesting anecdotes and events in the fiscal history of the state. Since the newly created state had marginal revenue which was highly insufficient to meet its necessary expenditure, Odisha received Rs 50 lakh compensation for the land it lost. Odisha also assigned a non-recurring grant of Rs 19 lakh from the centre at that time.

“Budget is a mirror of the policies of the government. The 80 budgets presented since 1936 portray the commitment of the government to take the state on the path of development. Over the years, Odisha budget has showed innovation to achieve the broader objective of development and welfare for the people of the state,” Patnaik said.

The chief minister said the state government has come up with a separate agricultural budget in 2016 with focused attention on the agricultural sector. Over the years, the state has made significant strides in educational, health and infrastructural sector, he said.

From a shoestring budget of the newly created state in 1936 to a whopping budget of Rs 1.2 lakh crore, the book has made an empirical analysis of state’s finance and also visualised the way forward.

Total expenditure summing up to Rs 1.77 crore, the budget of 1936-37 was a baby step towards transforming the socio-economic condition of the new province. Over the 80 years this has risen at a compound annual growth rate of 15% to a six digit budget of Rs 1, 06, 910 crore for the year 2017-18, he said.

“When my government formed for the first time in 2000, the budget outlay was Rs 14,000 crore and it has reached a level of Rs 1, 20, 028 crore in 2018-19. Over the years Odisha budget has shown innovations to achieve the broader objective of development and welfare of the people of the state. Odisha is no longer a BIMARU state,” he pointed out.

Several expenditure rationalization and revenue augmentation measures along with other fiscal reform programmes led to the state emerging as revenue surplus state since 2005-06. In 2006-07, the state became a fiscal surplus state for the first time.