Orissa yet to spend Rs 2,314-cr Central funds

The Orissa government has been unable to spend Rs 2314.44 crore of Central funds under different programmes during 2005-06 to 2009-10.

Out of Rs 16,467 crore provided by the Centre during the stated period, the state government has managed to spend Rs 14,153.32 crore, meaning that 14.05 per cent of the funds have remained unspent.

The state government received Central assistance to the tune of Rs 4087.68 crore in 2009-10.

This was informed by Planning & Coordination minister A U Singhdeo.

The minister admitted that the timely expenditure of funds by the different departments was a matter of concern for the state government but pointed out that the Plan expenditure has increased substantially over the past few years.

Singhdeo attributed the untimely expenditure of Plan outlay to factors like inordinate delay in land acquisition and forest clearance for the projects as well large number of vacancies in different departments.

In order to ensure the timely expenditure of Plan Outlay and avoid a rush in expenditure in the last month of a fiscal, the minister said, the state government aimed to put in place a Cash Management System and to start with, tis system would be introduced in 10 key departments.

According to this system, up to 60 per cent of the Plan expenditure would be spent by the end of December and the expenditure for the month of March shall not exceed 15 per cent.

It may be noted that the performance of various departments on the expenditure front has been woeful in the first quarter of the fiscal.

Only 7.96 per cent of the total budgetary allocation has been spent by the 34 departments in the April-June period of the current financial year as against the stipulated norm of 15 per cent for the first quarter of any fiscal.

Out of the total budgetary provision of Rs 10,200 crore for 2010-11, only Rs 811.99 crore has been spent by these departments, the minister had said earlier in the assembly.

The performance of departments like general administration, cooperation, law, public enterprises and revenue and disaster management has been particularly dismal as these departments have not been able to spend even a single rupee in the April-June quarter.

Similarly, the expenditure by departments like energy, industries, school and mass education, tourism and culture, transport, women and child development, labour and employment and health and family welfare leaves a lot to be desired as these departments have incurred less than two per cent of the expenditure in the said .