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| J&K again fails to spent plan money, Rs 2571 Crores lapses | | | Bashir Assad
Srinagar, Mar 30: Lapses of funds in Jammu and Kashmir has become a permanent feature of state functioning, the present dispensation has, however, broken all previous records of fund lapsing under both state-plan and centrally sponsored schemes.
On one hand very little to spare for capital expenditure from its budgetary receipts, the Jammu and Kashmir state has been incapable of spending even the easy funding available under different centrally sponsored schemes like MGNREGA, BRGF NABARD loan, BADP, Bad Pocket Plan, JNNURM, RKVY, NPAG, TSP and many other schemes.
With non-plan expenditure spiraling up to Rs 14, 011 crore, the state had just a plan allocation of Rs 6600 crore for 2011-12. However, the government has failed to utilize the plan allocations, thereby leaving a major portion of the plan outlay unspent which is due to lapse by today in absence of non-lapsable fund mechanism while on the other hand non-plan expenditure is the same.
Out of 6600 Crores approved by the Planning Commission of India for 2011-12 which was given much hype by the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather, only 4029 Crores have been utilized leaving a whopping sum of 2571 Crores unspent which is due to lapse as today being the last day of the fiscal.
With a cursor look on the department-wise outlay it become abundantly clear that non of the departments has been able to utilize 100% allocation. For instance, 17558 Lakhs were allocated for the Agriculture department out of which the department has been able ti utilize only 12042 Lakhs leaving 5516 Lakhs unspent which constitutes 31.41% of the total outlay. Similarly out of total outlay of 3140 Lakhs Animal and Sheep Husbandry Department has utilized only 1678 lakhs leaving 1462 lakhs unspent which is about 46.5 %. Likewise total outlay for Gardens and Parks Department was 2314 lakhs out of which only 1305 lakhs have been utilized leaving 1009 lakhs (43.5%) unspent.
Similarly Finance Department leaves 12366 lakhs (49.4%) unspent out of total outlay 25012 lakhs and Rural Development Department leaves 31.7% of the total outlay of 11395 lakhs unspent. Likewise Housing and Urban Development Department leaves 41.5%, Power Development Department 54.6%, Planning and Development Department 68.6%, Revenue Department 38.1%, Industries and Commerce Department 29.6% and Irrigation, Flood Control and PHE 44.7 unspent which is due to lapse within next few hours.
This poor state of affairs have been admitted by the government itself in reply to a cut motion moved by CPI(M) legislator M Y Tarigami. However, the reason attributed to this
insignificant achievement has been that the Financing was approved by the Planning Commission of India as late as in September, 2011. In the same breath, the government has attributed the incurring of less than 50% expenditure in some sectors under plan to the less/non receipt of resources from Central Government under earmarked component in some cases, time consumed in procedural process, late/less lifting of earmarked amount under "Negotiated Loans" from financial institutions etc. etc. Of course, these are the factors which are responsible for less spending and decimal performance but who is at fault? Who is responsible for fund lapsing, who has failed to submit utilization certificates and who is responsible for not fulfilling the conditions laid in the 13th Finance Commission Award.
The reason behind releasing the funds as late as in September 2011 by the Planning Commission is because the state government failed to fulfil the conditions put by the 13th Finance Commission. . of course, more often than not most of the funds are released at the fag end of the year leaving the state departments with little time to fulfil statutory procedures for their spending. But the fact remains that the state government has failed to fulfil the conditions for fund spending which is because of the administrative inefficiency and official apathy. Bureaucratic hassles are the main reason of failure on this count.
Experts also attribute the lapsing of the central grants to absence of a strong monitoring mechanism. To prevent the loss of this prized money, they suggest provision of a Lapse fund mechanism. Now let us come to the District Plan outlay for the year 2011-12. Total outlay for Srinagar District under District Plan was 5565 lakhs out of which only 2847 lakhs have been utilized while as out of total outlay of 9994 lakhs for Jammu district only 7671 lakhs have been expended during the plan period.
Likewise, as against the total respective outlays of 11333 and 8973 lakhs for Anantnag and Udhampur districts 8611 and 5408 lakhs were utilized respectively for the same period leaving whopping sums of 2722 and 3565 lakhs unspent. Against the total district plan of 180915 lakhs for all the 22 districts of the state, 126442 lakhs have been utilized thereby lapsing 54473 lakhs unspent.
Can the state government explain who is at fault and who is responsible for this insignificant achievement and whom they are kidding by listing their non-existent achievements as in the first part of reply to Tarigami's Cut-Motion, the government portrays the less spending as its achievement though in latter part of the same reply it admits insignificant achievement.? |
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