ODISHA

Encouraged with a high Growth in collection of Excise revenue in the past two years, the is eyeing for Rs 10,000 crore Excise and VAT collection from liquor during the Financial Year (FY) 2023-24.

Principal Secretary Excise Sushil K Lohani reviewed the Excise and VAT collection in the Excise sector. It came to the fore that the State had collected Rs 4,053.51 crore Excise and VAT of Rs1,346.71 crore from liquor during the FY 2020-21, which has been increased to Rs 5,528.40 crore Excise and Rs 2,100 crore VAT totalling to Rs 7,628.40 crore in 2021-22, thereby registering a growth of 41.26 per cent.

Similarly, the State has collected Rs 6,182.36 crore Excise and Rs 2585 crore VAT from liquor making a record amount of Rs 8,767.36 crore during the FY 2022-23 marking a growth of 14.93 percent against the collection of FY 2021-22.

While Rs 4,053.51 crore Excise revenue was collected during the FY 2020-21, it has increased to Rs 5,528.40 crore in 2021-22, thereby registering a growth of 36.39 percent. The excise revenue collection again increased by 11.83 percent to Rs 6,182 crore in 2022-23.

Moreover, the State collected Rs 1,346.71 crore VAT on excise items during 2020-21, which witnessed a growth of 55.93 per cent in 2021-22 and 23.08 percent growth in 2022-23. The State had collected Rs 2,100 crore and Rs 2,585 crore VAT from liquor during 2021-22 and 2022-23, respectively.

To achieve the ambitious Excise revenue target set for 2023-24, the State Government has come up with a comprehensive Excise Policy for the current fiscal.

As part of theOdishagovernments 5T (transparency, teamwork, technology, timeframe and transformation) initiative, thestate prisons directoratehas decided to introduce e-custody system injails. Once introduced, e-custody certificates ofprisonerscan be sent online to courts in quick time.

Besides, the prisons directorate has provided a laptop to each jail for smooth functioning of e-mulakat and video conferencing with courts under the e-prisons project.

The jail adalats would also be beneficial for those inmates, who are unable to come out despite being granted bail. Around 381 prisoners are currently lodged in different jails here for their failure to comply with the bail conditions and inability to furnish sureties

Last year, the global spending on maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) of aircraft was estimated at 90 billion dollars. By 2029, this is expected to rise to $125 billion given that main – tenance, repair and overhaul usually accounts for 8-10% of an airlines cost. The way Indian airlines fleet strength is growing annually, by the year 2030 we are likely to have the second-largest fleet of civilian aircraft after China. With this, the size ofMROof Indias domestic and imported aircraft is set to grow an – nually to Rs 25,000 crore in the next five years, and to Rs 36,000 crore once the fleet size reaches 2,000.

Odishahas all the capabilities, manpower and soft skills required to set up maintenance, repair and overhaul facility. While no Indian airport has the for setting up an MRO, the abandoned World War II airport at Amarda Road is best suited for setting up such a facility. The 900-acre airfield has one of the longest runways in the country with around 50km of taxiway, most of which are in good condition.

Inclusive development is a top most priority among other seven priorities focused in the Union Budget 2023-24 by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. It is told that the Amrut Kala in Azadi ki Amrit Mahotsav is committed to the motto of leaving no one behind and Sab Ka Saath Sabka Vikas by creating equal opportunity in budgetary allocation for youth, Women, farmers, OBCs, SCs, STs, PWDs, EWSs, manual scavengers and particularly vulnerable tribal groups (PVTG) who are largely left out in the development process. However many of the concerns of development of excluded social groups have not been reflected in the allocation of the Budget.

The approach of development also has not changed much as there is absence of a clear physical target and also lack of accountability in the absence of clarity over spending. Lets see the outlay in the Budget for SCs and STs to fulfill the felt need of inclusion.

This approach of inclusion has been discussed for a long time but it has often failed to produce the desired result in the absence of ways and means to serve the purpose. Therefore, the idea of inclusive development is still a slogan and there is little to realise on the ground by the marginalised social groups.

The total Union Budget 2023 -24 is Rs 49, 90,842.73 crore. Out of this the total allocation for the welfare of SCs is Rs 1, 59,126.22 crore and for STs, it is Rs 1, 17,943.73 crore. This amount is targeted exclusively for the development of about one-fourth of the Population of the country who are among the most vulnerable social groups.

The government has decided to partner with two private hospitals with trauma care facilities outside the state for free treatment of injured persons in the first 48 hours of road accident. Besides, some more private hospitals in Bhubaneswar and one in Rourkela have been empanelled by the government to provide free treatment to accident victims under the Free Treatment for Trauma Fund (FTTF) scheme. Earlier, only three hospitals in the state Apollo and AMRI Hospitals in Bhubaneswar and Ashwini Hospital in Cuttack were partnered by the government under the FTTF scheme.

FTTF scheme has been operational since October 2019. While the transport department used to provide the funds for free treatment of the accident victims in private hospitals, the Health department will now foot the bills. The government has sanctioned Rs 147.2 crore for five years for the FTTF scheme from the state budget, a senior transport official said. As per the new guidelines, an FTTF technical committee has been formed to look into different issues of treatment and its cost, which would be reimbursed by the government. An FTTF cell will function in the office of the DMET to supervise, regulate and coordinate the smooth functioning of the scheme.

Chief ministerNaveen Patnaikon Wednesday inaugurated a state-of-the-art and milk processing plant of theOdishaState Cooperative Milk Producers’ Federation (OMFED) atAriloin Cuttack district where 5 lakh litres of milk will be processed daily.

Set up over 51 acres of land, the automated plant has been developed by the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) at an Investment of Rs 263 crore.

The plant will produce 2-lakh litres of milk, 30,000 litres of curd, 10,000 litres of butter milk, 5,000 litres of lassi and other products like butter, cheese, flavoured milk and milk powder.

The chief minister also reiterated that increasing income of farmers is the key objective of various programmes of his government. The state has been facilitating subsidy of up to Rs 50 lakh to promote establishment of more dairy and milk processing units in the state, said the chief minister, urging the people to take advantage of various government programmes.

The University of Sugriwa, Bali, Indonesia and the Utkal University (UU), Bhubaneswar have signed an MoU for academic collaboration with the approval of UU Vice-Chancellor, Prof Sabita Acharya.

The objective is to foster academic excellence through joint research projects, joint workshops and training programmes, exchange of researchers, exchange of academic publications and other information and other forms of cooperation time to time.

More than 39,000 anganwadi centres (AWCs) in the state do not have toilets, Union minister of Women and child developmentSmriti Iranitold the Lok Sabha.

The government has set up AWCs in the state to provide supplementary Nutrition, non-formal pre-Education, Health, education, immunisation, health check-up and referral Services.

Altogether 72,587 AWCs are operational in the state. While all these centres have drinking water facilities, 39,859 of these AWCs do not have toilets. As on March 31 this year, 10.05 lakh AWCs have toilet facilities out of 13.87 lakh operational AWCs.

In 2018-19, more than Rs 6.87 crore have been released by theCentreto Odisha towards payment of rent of AWCs. This rent amount was Rs 6.46 crore in 2019-20 and Rs 8.79 crore in 2020-21.