With an aim to bring the State economy on track following the improvement in Covid-19 situation, the State Government’s expenditure has been increased by nearly 15 per cent till October of Fiscal 2021-22 in comparison to the same period of last financial year (2020-21).
While Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is reviewing the activities of various departments on a regular interval, Principal Secretary Finance Vishal Dev is keeping a tab on the spending by various departments.
According to official sources, the State has utilised Rs 60,464.67 crore till October of FY 2021-22 while the expenditure till October of 2020 was Rs 52,677.17 crore.
The total expenditure as on October 30 made by various departments of the State Government was 41.60 per cent of the Budget estimation made for the current Fiscal. However, the departments were able to utilise only 37.30 per cent of the Budget till October of previous year.
The total Budget estimation made for FY 2021-22 was Rs 1,45,349.95 crore. Till September, the total utilisation was Rs 50,896.92 crore, which was 35.02 per cent of the estimation.
However, the expenditure, by the end of October, has reached to Rs 60,464.67 crore. It means, nearly Rs 10,000 crore has been spent by various departments of the State in the month of October, 2021.
The State Government has utilised 6.58 per cent of the Budget during the last month alone, which is 2.92 per cent more than the expenditure made till October of last Fiscal.
Till October of 2021-22, the Culture Department has spent 80.01 per cent of its Budget allocation, followed by IT Department (55.15%), Agriculture (50.85%), Health (50.74%), Law (49.09%), I and PR (48.79%), SSEPD (49.64%), Finance (47.10%), Women and Child Development (46.97%), FS and CW (46.29%) and Home (46.19%). Similarly, the expenditure of some other departments are: Cooperation (44.70%), Higher Education (44.65%), Disaster Management (44.33%), S and ME (44.05%), Science and Technology (42.89%), Revenue (41.90%), Panchayati Raj (40.85%), Parliamentary Affairs (40.16%) and MSME (40.05%).
The other departments have recorded an expenditure of below 40 per cent till October end of the current financial year.
The departments which spent less are Tourism (10.21%), Industries (2.5%), Transport (17.41%), Rural Development (17.15%), and Energy (17.19%).
The State Government is giving full emphasis on speedy implementation of the education, health, livelihood and economic development programmes. One of the concerns of the State Government is less capital expenditure (CAPEX), which needed to be boosted up, officials said.
Infrastructure development is one of the core areas of CAPEX, where thrust is needed to be given, said an official. He also emphasised on close monitoring of the project implementation by visiting the sites.