Orissa claims revenue surplus of Rs 949.61 crore

Bhubaneswar, Mar 29 (UNI) Claiming a revenue surplus of Rs 949.61 crore for the first time during the past 22 years, Orissa Finance Minister P C Ghadei today presented a Rs 14008.33 crore vote-on- account for four months in the state Assembly.

Mr Ghadei said the total revenue receipts during 2007-2008 had been estimated at Rs 19491.17 crore as against Rs 15741.48 crore fixed during 2006-2007.

The Finance Minister said in a significant achievement of good fiscal management, the state had projected a revenue surplus during the 2007-2008 fiscal for the first time during the past 22 years.

He said another important development the government managed to reduce the net loan amount from Rs 3350 crore in 1999-2000 to Rs 638 crore during 2006-2007 and this had been done despite rise in plan size from Rs 2500 crore during 20004-2005 to Rs 3500 crore during 2006-2007.

The plan size for 2007-2008, he said, had been fixed at Rs 5100 crore and claimed that the net loan would be reduced to Rs 1040 crore. Similarly, the ration of revenue expenditure to the total expenditure had been increased from 6.59 per cent in 2005-2006 to 8.18 per cent in 2007-2008.

The government, he said, had made a budgetary provision for Rs 24 crore to provide additional one lakh old age pension and clear all the arrears for scholarship for the SC/ST students.

This apart a provision of Rs 110 crore for Gopabandhu Gramin Yojana and Rs 120 crore for the Biju KBK Yojana had been provided in the budget.

He said the budgetary provision for the School and Mass Education had been increased by Rs 220.69 crore, adding 691 schools in the state would be now eligible for block grants.

UNI