Bhubaneswar: The State Assembly on Wednesday passed an Appropriation Bill of Rs 146061, 09,32,000 presented by Finance Minister Niranjan Pujari for the financial year 2019-20 after a marathon discussion.
Initiating the debate, Leader of Opposition Pradipta Kumar Naik said the State Government is always making false claims that the NDA Government at the Centre has neglected Odisha.
“During the UPA Government’s 13th Finance Commission, the State had got Central assistances of Rs 69,316 crore. But the assistances rose by 265 per cent to Rs 1,84,000 during the 14th Finance Commission,” said Naik.
He said the State’s own revenue even doesn’t meet the expenditure of salary and pension now. He said the NDA Government provided Rs 20,155 crore for various railway projects in the State during the last five years.
Even as funding for eight Central projects were stopped, introduction of 80 new projects have benefited Odisha much, claimed Naik.
However, BJD’s Amar Prasad Satpathy said Odisha got Rs 26,000 crore less even as the percentage of Divisional Pool increased from 32 per cent to 42 per cent. Funds were diverted from the Divisional Pool as the Centre levied more cess and surcharge, he said.
He slammed the Union Government for not providing special category status or special focus status to Odisha.
He claimed that Odisha has now become revenue surplus State due to efficient financial management of the State Government.
Among others, Prafulla Samal, Santosh Singh Saluja, Priti Ranjan Ghadai, Debi Prasad Mishra, Debesh Acharya, Ashwini Kumar Patra, Suresh Kumar Routray, Pradeep Dishari, Rajendra Sahoo, Tara Prasad Bahinipati and Anant Das participated in the discussion.
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