People watch finance minister Pranab Mukherjee’s budget speech at a television showroom in Bhubaneswar on Monday. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee

Bhubaneswar, Feb. 28: The state’s political class might be unhappy but Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee’s general budget holds out hope for Orissa.

Apart from what it has offered to the country as a whole, the budget has certain provisions from which the state could gain significantly.

Opposition parties across the country have criticised the UPA-II government for focusing more on election-bound states and sparing little thought for others.

The most significant of these is the finance minister’s decision to increase the allocation under the Backward Regions Grant Fund (BRGF) from Rs 7300crore to Rs 9890crore, a jump of over 35 per cent.

As many as 19 districts of the state, including the eight comprising the infamous KBK belt, are the beneficiaries of BRGF which was set up with the specific objective of imparting a fillip to the development of backward regions.

However, chief minister, Naveen Patnaik slammed the budget proposals saying it had failed to provide the toiling masses any respite from the soaring food prices.

“The budget has also not offered any special outlay for less developed states like Orissa. My biggest disappointment is that no relief package has been provided for our farmers who suffered huge losses on account of unseasonal rains in December 2010,” he said.

Revenue minister Surya Narayan Patro described it as a “ no gain” budget for Orissa and hit out at Mukherjee for failing to come up with a mechanism to arrest the rising prices. However, criticism notwithstanding, the budget may do the state some real good. One of the important announcements from Orissa point of view relates to the Intregrated Action Plan (IAP) for 60 selected tribal and backward districts where unattended problems have led to the growth of left wing extremism. The scheme, which would be implemented with 100 percent block grant of Rs.30 crore per district during 2011-12, is expected to benefit the KBK districts.

The allocated funds under the scheme would be placed at the disposal of district level committees which would spend the amount on developmental schemes in consultation with local MPs. Sources said the focus of the scheme would be on governance and implementation of pro-poor legislations like Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 (PESA) and the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006.

However, former state BJP president, Suresh Pujari appeared far from convinced.

“These are policy announcements with details to come later. The KBK concept has already been defeated with the region failing to make any progress because of poor flow of funds from the Centre. As for the IAP the funds for the Naxal-prone areas may actually go to the Maoists given the prevailing state of affairs in the state,” said Pujari.

The critics would, however, find it hard to find fault with the finance minister’s announcement about continuing with the government’s efforts to usher green revolution in the eastern region.

With a further allocation of Rs 400crore this year, the programme would target improvement in the rice-based cropping system of states such Orissa, West Bengal, Assam and Bihar where rice is the staple diet of the people.

The announcement about enhancing the export duty on all kinds of iron ore to 20 percent ad valorem could help the conservation of state’s precious iron ore reserves which are under tremendous pressure. Critics, however, feel that the state would gain little in financial terms as the entire export duty would go to the Centre.