By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, November 11, 2019: Odisha government on Monday announced to continue to work with International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) South Asia Training and Technical Assistance Center ( SATTAC), New Delhi for further improving fiscal management and resource augmentation of the State.

This was decided at a high-level meeting on public finance management (PFM) system between the state government and a team of the IMF officials presided over by chief secretary Asit Tripathy here.

SATTAC provides world class capacity development facility to Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Apart from capacity enhancement, the center provides technical assistance support to few states including Odisha.

“Looking into the progress already made in this direction, Odisha has shown great interest and progress in improving PFM. It is one of the most active states in India. We are impressed by the level of political will, technical preparedness, administrative commitment and the degree of progress that have already been made. We will continue our joint effort with Odisha in coming two years for full achievement of the targets,” Anne Marie Gulde, Deputy Director Asia-Pacific Department, IMF said.

Sukhwinder Singh, Director, SATTAC said, “Odisha is one of the pioneering states to have introduced strategic budget making and commitment control system. The success of Odisha could be showcased as a model for emulation by other Indian states.”

Issues on fiscal reforms relating to the implementation of strategic fiscal planning, strategic budget making, preparation of fiscal strategy paper, Odisha Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act, fiscal risk management, cash management, commitment management and control CMC) system, common treasury management and e-procurement were deliberated in the meeting.

The fiscal indicators of Odisha were also reviewed in the meeting. The State Budget size increased from Rs 18,516.52 crore in 2001-02 to Rs 1,39,000 crore in 2019-20 thereby recording a growth of more than 18 times. Besides, the state is now a revenue surplus state by overcoming the revenue deficit situation of 5.48% of GSDP in 2001-02 and reaching revenue surplus of 2.17% in 2018-19. The debt stock has decreased from 46.48% of GSDP in 2001-02 to 19.7% of GSDP in 2019-20. Fiscal deficit has been reduced from 7.68% to 3.49% during the period. The capital outlay for the infrastructural sector has increased from 1.72% of GSDP in the year 2001-02 to 4.53% in the year 2019-20.