Gujarat: Rs 943 cr meant for SCs, OBCs unspent in last 2 years

The Gujarat government today informed the Legislative Assembly that of the Rs 3,540 crore budgetary allocations made for SCs and OBCs in the last two years, Rs 943.41 crore have remained unspent due to several reasons.
The government provided the information during the Question Hour of the ongoing Budget Session of the Assembly as Congress MLA Shailesh Parmar sought details about the total budget allocated by the state for the welfare of SCs and OBCs in 2016-17 and 2017-18.
The legislator also sought to know the unspent and spent funds.
In his written reply, state Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Ishwar Parmar said the government had allocated Rs 3,540.01 crore in two years-- Rs 1,733.06 crore in 2016-17 and Rs 1,806.94 crore in 2017-18.

Out of this revised budgetary provisions, Rs 2,596.59 crore were spent in the last two years. While Rs 1,6213.9 crore were spent in 2016-17, Rs 975.19 crore were spent in 2017-18 (till December 2017).
The minister added that Rs 943.41 crore remained unspent in these two years-- Rs 111.66 crore in 2016-17 and Rs 831.75 crore in the next fiscal (till December 2017).
In his written reply, he listed various reasons for the unspent funds, including delay by education institutes in submitting proposals for scholarships and other subsidies meant for the students of Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Other Backward Classes (OBCs).

The minister also said the funds remain unspent because of the delay in receiving pending bills for various schemes, such as distribution of bicycles to OBC beneficiaries.