The Council of Ministers under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday approved the vote-on-account for four months of 2014-15.
The vote-on-account will be presented in the State Assembly by the Finance Minister on February 7 next. The short Assembly session is scheduled to commence from February 3 and would continue till February 13.According to official sources, the Annual Budget for the fiscal has been pegged at an estimated Rs 75,000 crore in the absence of the finalisation of the State plan. However, the size of the vote-on-account will be around Rs 20,000 crore.
Finance Minister Prasanna Acharya who declined to divulge the details of the vote-on account told newsmen after the Council of Ministers' meeting that provisions for the first four months -April, May, June and July, has been made in the vote-on-account due to the upcoming general elections. The allocations include expenditure for salary, pension, provision for the on-going schemes and some new schemes, he said.
Stating that that due attention has been given to all the departments while finalising the vote-on-account, Acharya said that the new Government would present the full-fledged Budget for the financial year 2014-15 after constitution of the 15th Assembly.