Plan and Non-Plan expenditure at 80 per cent in 2009-10

Orissa recorded an overall budgetary expenditure (Plan and Non-Plan) of 80.18 per cent in 2009-10. As against the total Planned and Non-Plan provision of Rs 37,801.03 crore, the spending was to the tune of Rs 30,308.58 crore in the last fiscal.

This was informed by the state finance minister Prafulla Chandra Ghadai in a written reply in the state legislative assembly.

The department of public enterprises achieved a 100 per cent expenditure in the last fiscal while department of parliamentary affairs is at the bottom with a spending of only 59.82 per cent.

As against the provision of Rs 11.25 crore, the department of public enterprises spent the entire amount. On the contrary, the department of parliamentary affairs could manage to spend only Rs 13.59 crore out of the planned as well as non-planned provision of Rs 22.72 crore.

Ghadai said that the low spending departments are being advised by the state finance department to help achieve optimum expenditure.

Among the departments which have posted a stellar performance on the expenditure front and have recorded an expenditure of more than 90 per cent in the last fiscal are general administration, food supplies and consumer welfare, information technology, energy, cooperation, information & public relations, industries, works, commerce, sports and youth affairs and tourism and culture.

The departments which clocked an expenditure of less than 70 per cent are parliamentary affairs, health & family welfare, labour and employment and public grievances and pension administration.

In order to ensure the timely expenditure of Plan Outlay and avoid a rush in expenditure in the last month of a fiscal, 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 current 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.