Odisha: CM Mohan Majhi holds budget consultations with top officials

By Mahendra Darjee

Bhubaneswar, July 11: Odisha chief minister Mohan Charan Majhi and deputy chief minister Prabhati Parida on Thursday held a pre-budget discussion with the senior officials of the state administration at Lok Seva Bhawan.

Discussion was held on presentation on the Economic Survey Report.

The Odisha government will present its annual budget on July 25, two days after the presentation of the Union budget.

On February 8, the then finance minister Bikram Keshari Arukha presented a Vote-on-Account for 2024‐25 in the Odisha Legislative Assembly with an outlay of Rs 2,55,000 crore, which is about 11 per cent more than the Annual Budget, 2023-24.

The Naveen Patnaik government could not present a full-fledged budget as the term of the 16th Assembly was scheduled to expire on June 24.

Customarily, the new government has the prerogative to formulate new programmes and schemes. Accordingly, instead of presenting a full‐fledged budget a Vote‐on‐Account Budget was presented to enable the government to incur expenditure for the first four months of the financial year 2024‐25 on existing establishments and on‐going schemes and projects.