Bhubaneswar: Feb 27: Replying to questions asked by ruling party MLA Ranendra Pratap Swain, Prafulla Samal and MLAs from other parties, Finance Minister Pradip Amat while presenting the annual budget in the state assembly said, State Government of Odisha is yet to collect Rs.7446.73 crore from various organisations, companies and agencies. Out of the total amount of 7446.73 cr, 2085.96 cr of revenue is pending with companies under commerce department, 2121 cr with 57 companies under water resources department, 1846 cr with 39 companies under mining department and 1279.77 cr of dues under energy department. The minister said IOCL, Paradip has not paid its VAT dues amounting to Rs 1485 crores since December 2015. Also, some state and central government agencies are yet to pay Rs.3255.14 cr of revenue besides 60 cr of excise revenue. Speaking further in the assembly, Amat said, State government has decided to appoint a special counsel for solving out long pending cases and collection of outstanding dues.
This time, the state budget will be around Rs.1.06 lakh cr, which will be approximately Rs.12,000 cr more than the last annual budget. As done by Union Government, state has also decided to merge both plan and non-plan expenditure. The allocation will be made on a scheme-wise mode rather than department wise allocations.
