Bhubaneswar: Even as the State cabinet has finalised the contours of Odisha’s post-pandemic budget with a total expenditure plan of Rs 1.7 lakh crore, the state of finances as on January end indicates a deceleration of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) in the current financial year ending on March 31, 2021.
Highly placed sources in the State Finance department disclosed that Odisha had seen a sharp slowdown in the Gross State Value Added (GSVA) this year (2020-21). Moreover, the precarious state of affairs is when the tax receipts recorded negative growth, the subsidies have grown higher.
For which, as against the projected GSDP growth rate of 7 per cent for the fiscal year 2021, the real GSDP growth is likely to hover between (-) 6 per cent to (+)1.8 per cent, sources informed.
TAXING TIMES
As per the official data available till January end, while the total GST revenue mobilised by the State recorded a negative growth to the tune of around 6 per cent to touch Rs 10,124 crore, the collections from VAT and CST together had clocked (-) 5 per cent to a total amount of Rs 5,363 cr.
It is for the buoyancy in professional tax collections that the overall total tax receipts till January end couldn’t see a yawning dip this fiscal. The total tax collections clocked only a minus five per cent growth amounting to Rs 15,825 cr.
The excise revenue had also taken a severe beating. The mobilisations are down by over 36 per cent.
However, in the non-tax front, the scenario is not bad. Mining revenue is up by around 10 per cent. The State Finance minister can also rely on the good growth in dividends and profits from State PSUs, data revealed.
THE GROSS PICTURE
Despite the State’s overall own revenue is poised to post a positive growth of around 4 per cent, thanks to the vibrancy witnessed in the non-tax revenue mobilisation, the Gross State Value Added (GSVA) is projected to contract this fiscal, except for the agriculture sector.
“Due to pandemic, the services sector in the State had contracted badly. Except for electricity production, water supply and mining, the sectors like manufacturing and construction have charted a negative growth rate in the range of 11 to 5 per cent. As a consequence, the GSVA is projected to clock a negative eight per cent growth in the fiscal year 2020-21,” the sources informed.
The gross picture for the State is when both the tax revenue receipts and production of goods and services have recorded negative growth, and in contrast, the overall subsidies had posted a record growth of around 17 per cent due to pandemic exigencies, the double whammy will definitely pare down the GSDP projections for the year 2020-21, the sources added.
THE FM SPEAK
However, speaking exclusively to odishatv.in, Finance Minister Niranjan Pujari said,
“There is a practice of secrecy in budget making. I cannot comment on any aspect of the budget before tabling it in the august house. We will discuss the threadbare in the post-budget press conference on February 22.”