Hry FM dismisses opposition's charge of under-utilisation of budget

The Haryana government today rubbished the Opposition's claim regarding under-utilisation of the budget, saying that it has spent over 90 per cent of the allotted amount in 2017-18.

Haryana Finance Minister Abhimanyu said whereas the previous Congress government could not even achieve 85 per cent utilization of the budget of Rs 40,000 cr in 2010-11, the present government has achieved over 90 per cent utilisation of budget of over Rs one lakh crore.

He said the state government has ensured the budget utilization of above 90 per cent during the last three financial years.

However, the budget utilization of previous government was 84.91 per cent in 2010-11, 87 per cent in 2011-12, 88 per cent in 2012-13 and 85 per cent in 2013-14, he told the Assembly today.

While referring to the capital expenditure, the finance minister said that the present state government has spent major chunk of the debt on infrastructure development.

He said that the capital expenditure has been increased from over Rs 12,787 crore in 2013-14 to over Rs 15,374 crore in 2017-18.

The government has a plan to increase it to Rs 17,346 crore in 2018-19, he added.

Giving comparative figures of the budget allocation, he said allocation for agriculture and allied sector was 2.79 per cent of the total budget in the year 2013-14, which has been increased to 3.56 per cent in 2018-19.

Similarly, budget allocation for health sector has been raised from 3.2 per cent in 2013-14 to 4.14 per cent of the total budget.

He said that the government has made 20 per cent increase in the budget for irrigation this year whereas the same has been reduced by two per cent during the previous government in the year 2008-09.

Refuting the allegations of downfall in the utilization of budget, he said that the previous government has spent only 79 per cent of revised estimated in health sector in 2013-14 thus registering a downfall of 21 per cent.

The finance minister said that the expenditure in Urban Local Bodies Department was only 72 per cent whereas in Employment, Town and Country Planning, Technical Education and Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes Department, it was 75 per cent, 37 per cent, 79 per cent and 69 per cent respectively thus registering a downfall of 25 per cent, 63 per cent, 21 per cent and 31 per cent.