Bhubaneswar: Dubbing the Union budget as ‘disappointing’, chief minister Naveen Patnaik today said the State, ravaged by natural calamities, has been completely neglected while special assistance has been declared for Bihar and West Bengal.
"As regards Odisha, I am deeply disappointed both with the recommendation of the 14th Finance Commission and the Union budget," Patnaik told mediapersons in the evening while reacting to the budget for 2015-16 presented by Union Finance minister Arun Jaitley in Parliament earlier in the day.
While the budget indicates a focus on rapid development of eastern States and special assistance has been declared for Bihar and West Bengal, Odisha has been completely neglected, the chief minister lamented.
"Our State faced two of the worst calamities in last two years in the form of Phailin and Hud Hud. At least on this score, Odisha deserved special focus," he said, adding, "I am shocked that this fact has been completely overlooked in the budget in spite of our repeated demands."
Moreover, no Central allocation for Nabakalebara-2015 of Lord Jagannath has been made though there has been a flow of resources for improvement of facilities in nine other heritage sites in the country, Patnaik also pointed out.
Stating that Odisha's share in tax devolution would come down from 4.78 percent to 4.60 percent, he said this would involve a loss of about Rs 4,600 crore over a period of five years because of the inclusion of new criteria such as ‘demographic changes’, i.e. population as per 2011 census and deletion of the criteria of ‘fiscal discipline’.
Noting that Odisha had exceptional achievements in FRBM parameters, the chief minister said, "Now we are being penalised because of our good performance in fiscal discipline and population stabilisation initiatives. We are going to lose funds as we have done well in these parameters."
The net positive impact to the State would be minimal after the increase from 32 percent to 42 percent in case of Central taxes, he said, adding “there has been a substantial decrease in overall plan outlay of our State and also at the overall national level”.
The chief minister pointed out that plan outlay of Rs 4,65,277 crore is even less than the outlay of Rs 4,67,934 crore kept at the level of revised estimate 2014-15. The States' share in Central taxes in 2014-15 is less than budget estimate of 2014-15 by Rs 2,136 crore and in 2015-16 it is far less than 14th Finance Commission recommendation by about Rs 2,590 crore, he added.
"Even though there is a talk of focus on irrigation and agriculture in the budget, the allocation towards these crucial sectors has been abysmally low," Patnaik said.