Over the opening half of the 2026-27 financial year, Odisha drew down roughly one-quarter of its earmarked capital expenditure and deployed approximately one-third of its overall budget allocation. Through the close of September, disbursements from the state's Rs 3.1 lakh crore annual budget had reached Rs 94,463 crore.

The figures were presented at a gathering of department secretaries convened by the Finance Department. A Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report underpinning those findings identified Rs 2,36,868.57 crore that went unspent or was returned to the treasury across five consecutive financial years.

Out of the Rs 1.8 lakh crore set aside for programme expenditure in 2026-27, Odisha had drawn down Rs 58,508 crore through to September, according to figures from a broadcast news outlet. Of the Rs 72,100 crore earmarked for the full year, only Rs 18,183 crore had been deployed through capital expenditure by the period under review.

Spending on establishment, operations and maintenance — grouped under the EOM category — came in roughly 4.1 per cent lower in absolute terms than the equivalent period a year earlier.

Figures from the CAG's state-finances report show that Odisha's capital outlay fell short of its targets by roughly 17 per cent on average, while total budget utilisation lagged by around 20 per cent, across the five-year stretch from 2020-21 through 2024-25. Across that same period, unspent allocations against approved budget figures fell within a band of roughly 17.7 per cent at the lower end and 25.98 per cent at the upper end.

Between the 2020-21 fiscal year and 2024-25, the state's annual budget expanded by roughly 71.64 per cent, climbing from Rs 1,67,663 crore to Rs 2,87,770 crore across that four-year span.

Unfilled posts across government departments and holdups in the release of centrally allocated funds were among the factors that kept actual spending below projected levels, according to Amarendra Das, an associate professor at the National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER).

Chief Secretary Anu Garg directed departments to keep a closer watch on spending patterns and accelerate the pace of disbursements, with programme and capital expenditure drawing particular attention. Directives went out to engineering departments to lift expenditure by at least ten per cent over the next six months while simultaneously accelerating the pace at which projects reach completion.

Departmental secretaries were tasked with identifying where work is stalling — whether at the committee review stage, during detailed project report drafting, through the tender process, or at the point of Cabinet approval — and taking steps to clear those bottlenecks. A meeting attendee noted that those present had been directed to keep a close watch on progress at their respective levels and to ensure that responsibility is assigned for delays that could have been prevented.