Bhubaneswar: The state cabinet on Saturday approved a proposal to amend the Odisha Contingency Fund (OCF) Act, 1967 and the issuance of an ordinance to raise corpus for the fund.
Talking to mediapersons after the meeting, Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi said that the state government had enhanced the corpus of the OCF from Rs 150 crore to Rs 400 crore by the Odisha Contingency Fund (Amendment) Act, 2008 (Odisha Act 1 of 2009) to meet the emergent expenditure.
Stating that the state has recently received Central assistance of Rs 1052.26 crore towards 60% Central share of Centrally Sponsored (CSS) Swachh Bharat Mission Gramin (SBM-G), he said as per Government of India guidelines, the Central share along with the 40% matching state share is required to be released to the implementing agency within 15 days from the date of receipt of the sanction order from Government of India. Thus, the total amount (including 40% state share) required to be released against the Central assistance for SBM-G is Rs 1756.91 crore.
“However, there is a budget provision of Rs 1000 crore under the unit in 2018-19 (BE), which is inadequate to meet the requirement. Accordingly, the Panchayati Raj & Drinking Water Department has requested for sanction of advance amounting to Rs 756.91 crore from Odisha Contingency Fund (OCF) to meet the emergent expenditure. Besides, there is need to maintain some balance in the Contingency Fund to meet the emergent nature of expenditure till the formulation of Supplementary Statement of Expenditure, 2018-19,” he pointed out.
Considering the above, the Cabinet decided to increase the OCF corpus from Rs 400 to Rs 1400 crore temporarily in the interest of public service. The State Assembly is not in session and to meet the urgent and emergent need, the corpus of the fund is to be enhanced by an ordinance, Padhi pointed out.
