Bihar set to table ₹2.15 lakh cr annual budget on Monday

Officials of the finance department, however, told HT that the committed expenditure would be increased nominally as compared to the last fiscal.

Deputy chief minister Tar Kishore Prasad is all set to table the annual budget of around ₹2.15 lakh crore for fiscal 2021-22 in the state legislature on Monday for seeking its approval during the ongoing Budget session.

Image for representation. (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Prasad, who also holds the finance portfolio, said that the impact of Covid-19-induced lockdown and subsequent fall in revenue collection had compelled the state government to restrain the budget outlay.

“The state government was wishing to enhance the total outlay, but the overall situation did not support us,” said the deputy CM, while refusing to hint at the exact volume of the budget estimate.

Officials of the finance department, however, told HT that the committed expenditure would be increased nominally as compared to the last fiscal in keeping with the rise in establishment cost. “However, plan head expenditure has been kept more or less unchanged owing to the deficit in tax collection,” said an officer.

The committed expenditure (which was earlier called non-plan head) is likely to be around ₹1.10 lakh crore, while scheme expenditure (previously categorised as plan head) will be ₹1.05 lakh crore. Last year, the state government had tabled the annual budget estimate of ₹2,11,761 crore, which included ₹1.059 lakh crore as committed expenditure and ₹1.057 lakh crore as scheme head expenditure.

With the internal revenue collections and central devolutions dipping in this fiscal year owing to economic contraction caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the fiscal deficit for 2020-2021 is set to go up and hover around the 4 per cent mark of the state gross domestic product (SGDP), said officials.

Talking to media persons on Saturday, principal secretary, finance, S Siddharth had said that the fiscal deficit has been capped at around 4 per cent, which was well within the permissible borrowing limit of 5 per cent of the SDGP despite the adverse impact on the state finances due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

The state government has already borrowed ₹26,000 crore till January this fiscal as against the target of ₹28,000 crore, owing to the dip in internal revenue and devolutions. There are projections that the internal revenue target of ₹39,900 crore would fall short by ₹9,000 to ₹10,000 crore.