Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Monday met Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and discussed with him various financial issues relating to the State.
Patnaik apprised Jaitley that the State faces a net additional liability of Rs 2,149 crore in 2015-16 since the gain due to increase in devolution from 32 per cent to 42 per cent only partly offsets the loss suffered by the State on account of reduction of Central Assistance and grants.
He mentioned that Prime Minister had also been duly apprised of this fact by him in April, 2015. The Chief Minister expressed his concern that the Budget speech of the Union Finance Minister, while recognising the needs of the Eastern States to grow faster, makes no mention of any Special Central Assistance for Odisha. He mentioned that similar Special Assistance has been promised to other Eastern States.
He emphasised that Odisha deserves a greater share in Central Assistance as compared to the other Eastern States, justified by its backwardness and low levels of many socio-economic development indicators.
He urged upon the Union Finance Minister to recognise the meager resource base of the State and the huge requirements of resources required to meet the critical development needs and provide at least Rs 3,500 crore to Odisha from the provision made for special dispensation through NITI Aayog.
The Chief Minister brought to the notice of Jaitley that discontinuance of Central assistance for key area development programmes, including special plan for KBK region, Backward Region Grant Fund (BRGF) and Integrated Action Plan (IAP) for left Wing Extremism (lWE) affected districts would severely impact the vulnerable groups in the backward regions of the State. He also underlined that lack of adequate Central assistance for many flagship programmes hit the development of the State.