Odisha budget to be tabled on March 18

Bhubaneswar: Finance minister Pradeep Kumar Amat will present the budget for the financial year 2016-17 on March 18. A notification to this effect was issued on Friday.

As per the notification issued by the Assembly secretariat, the budget session will be held in two phases between March 15 and May 20. There will be 33 working days in the session.

The first phase will end on March 31 while the second phase will begin from April 26 and conclude on May 20, the notification said.

The Finance minister will present the Appropriation Bill for two months while the draft of the full budget for the remaining 10 months will be sent to the Assembly Standing Committee, which would give its suggestion by April 25.

Commenting on the deviation from budget presentation in previous years, Amat had said the new format will help the State government to allocate funds on different heads strategically.

“The idea behind such an initiative is that we will get to know the amounts allocated in the Central budget under different heads beforehand. Besides, during the existence of Planning Commission, we were able to preempt the Centre’s allocation to particular sectors. But after Niti Ayog came into existence, there is less scope for such speculation. So, we will wait for the Centre to present the budget and after analysing it, we will draft State budget,” Amat had said earlier.