India, Aug. 30 -- PATNA: The state finance department has sought a detailed information from all departments about the receipts, expenditure, salary bills , fund allocation for matching grants of state schemes, central schemes as well as tax collection estimates for preparing the state budget for next fiscal year 2027-28. The data will also be used for revising the current budget estimates of this fiscal year 2026-27, officials in the department said. A detailed letter has been issued to all departmental heads recently in which guidelines for proving related information has been mentioned and performa of data related entries have been annexed for being submitted to the finance department by October 1, sources said. The state budget for next fiscal year 2027-28 will be presented likely in early February , 2027. The state budget of this fiscal year stands at Rs 3.47 lakh crore , which could be revised in next few months based on the receipts from tax collections and expenditure on committed heads and various projects and annual schemes. Finance officials said the main focus is on preparing the state budget for next year on realistic estimates so that there is less room for any wasteful expenditure and financial resources were better utilised in the state. " All the departments have been asked to also give proper details of the salary being provided to regular and contractual employees as that is crucial to assess the committed expenditure, a key component of the state budget," said an official. People familiar with the matter said the salary details of all departments were being requisitioned with utmost priority this year in view of the large scale recruitments having taken place in education, health , home and other departments in last one year , which has already increased the state's expenditure on salary bills. " This system is already there is other states too," said another official. There is a provision of Rs 70929 crore in this year's budget on the salary head , which is likely to increase with new appointments going on, officials said. Signfiicantly, emphasis has been put on preparing the state budget next year by adhering to the observation and recommendations made by Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) pertaining to realistic budget estimates. It has been stressed that departments should make specific mention of how much they are going to get as receipts and how much is the estimated expenditure in various projects/ schemes instead of making allocations on different heads as that, often, leads to misleading budget estimates, a point which has often been red flagged by the central auditor in their reports of state of finances in last few years. The guidelines have also talked of the grants in aid to be given to panchayati raj institutions and urban local bodies highlighting that the concerned departments should make necessary budgetary fund provision for the grants to the local bodies. The panchayat raj institutions are set to get interim grants in aid of Rs 5666.92 crore while the urban local bodies would get 3051.41 crore , which would be revised once the exact figures receipts and expenditure come for the next year's budget, the letter said. " The departments have been directed to make budgetary provisions by assessing how much funds could be utilised for different projects, schemes so that there is less scope for savings ie non-utlisation of funds in any fiscal year. The budgetary provisions has to be made by assessing the expenditure pattern of last three years by the departments so that there is realistic budget estimates. That is the focus," said another finance official, seeking anonymity....