State Finance Secretary Ashok K Meena during a discussion on the Odisha Budget 2020 said that the State aims at bringing out structural transformation and the 5T was a substantive step in that direction.
Meena said the State had introduced strategic budgeting to bring clarity in the resource allocation to each department. “Under the strategic budgeting each department will now have an idea regarding the possible ceiling in the allocation to the department in the coming year. Therefore, each department may undertake proper planning within the budget limit, instead of the Finance Department pruning down the demand for grants submitted by the departments,” he told.
He said the focus in the Budget has been health, mining and tourism sectors. The Government wants to upgrade the SCB Medical College Hospital to AIIMS plus status. Similarly, additional 2,000 posts of doctors, 6,000 posts of nurses and 2000 posts of other paramedics during the year 2019-20 have been created, the Finance Secretary informed.
Meena further told the debt of the State was well within limit of the target given by the Union Finance Commission. The State wants to keep the debt stock within 20 per cent of GSDP and needs to borrow to catch up with the national level of per capita income, he told.
Many of the panelists raised concern over the health sector allocation in the State which was low. In order to effectively implement the Biju Swasthya Kalayan Yojana (BSKY), the State needs to substantially increase the budgetary allocation, they opined.
Concerns were raised on relying on mining industry, which was causing huge environmental damage, to finance the budget. Revenue from mining industry involves notable uncertainty. This may pose problems before the Government in financing the budget, said the experts. However, the Finance Secretary allayed the fear and said that the State had accumulated huge amount of money in its sinking fund that could be used in the difficult times.
It was also discussed that Odisha had a very good pupil-to-teacher ratio. However, the quality of education remained very low. The pupil-teacher ratio of Odisha is much better than neighboring States and even neighboring countries of India, they said.
While the seminar was organised by the Department of A and A Economics, Utkal University and the Orissa Economics Association, eminent experts in the field who joined included Orissa Economics Association secretary Dr Amarendra Das, Prof Srijit Mishra, Prof Satyakam Mishra, Dr Satyapriya Rath, Prof Kishore Chandra Samal, Sourendra Kumar Sahu, Dr Chitta Ranjan Nayak, Dr Sarot Kumar Rout, Dr Shiba Shankar Mohanty, Rajesh Mohapatra, Prof Bhabesh Sen among others. While welcome address was given by Prof Mitali Chinara, the vote of thanks was given by Dr Alok Ranjan Behera.