By Biswa Bhusan Mohapatra
Post News Network
BHUBANESWAR: With three-fourths of the present financial year over by December-end, fund utilisation by various state governments remained much below target. Almost all departments kept with them as high as 60 per cent of the funds allocated for the fiscal ending March 2015. The allocations included grants under the state plan sectors.
Out of the planned outlay of `38,954.34 crore in 2014-15, the expenditure incurred by different departments till November, 2014, was `15,913.37 crore. This amounted to only 40.85 per cent. The expenditure recorded in the corresponding period last year was higher at 46.48 per cent.
Official sources told Orissa Post that only eight out of 18 departments covered under the cash management system (CMS) had failed to meet the target by the end of the second quarter. But at third-quarter end, by December 31, all the departments fell far behind the
target.
The expenditure of departments involved in infrastructure development was by far the worst. Only 38.88 per cent of the annual planned provision was utilised by the four departments. The departments are: works (52.21 per cent), housing and urban development (18.11 per cent) and energy-non agriculture feeder (25.65 per cent).
Only 43.02 per cent of the annual state plan provision was spent by the departments for agriculture and allied activities. Those departments are agriculture (54.67 per cent), water resources (35.62 per cent), fisheries and animal resource development (37.12 per cent), cooperation (46.78 per cent) and energy-agriculture feeder (50 per cent), sources said.
The utilisation of allotted funds by the social sector departments is also below target. Only 42.36 per cent of the state plan provision was spent so far. The expenditure in such departments was school and mass education (36.30 per cent), SC,ST development (33.50 per cent), health and family welfare (38.83 per cent), labour and employees’ state insurance (24.47 per cent), panchayati raj (53.61 per cent), women and child development (38.72 per cent), higher education (41.57 per cent) and employment, technical education and training (56.26 per cent).
The performances of the above departments can be easily gauged from the expenditure incurred in the month of November, which is one of the crucial months in the financial year calendar. In November, the energy department spent no money (Zero) while the housing and urban development department spent 0.51 per cent) rural development (1.21 per cent) and health and family welfare (1.98 per cent).
Similarly, the expenditure of different departments including agriculture, water resources, fisheries and animal resource development, school and mass education, SC/ST development, higher education and ETET departments were around five per cent each or less, in November.According to the cash management system (CSM), target has been set for the departments in ways as to spend at least 60 per cent of the allotted money by the end of the third quarter.
“The trend of spending by different departments this year shows that it is very difficult to achieve the plan targets in this fiscal. The finance department has issued directives to all the departments to expeditiously meet the target,” said an
official.
