Finance dept seeks status of budgetary programmes

Taking a leaf out of the Union finance ministry’s experience, the state finance department has urged all departments to furnish status of implementation of major policy and programme announcements made in the budget for 2012-13.

This is the latest effort by finance department to arrest any laxity in programme execution by all departments after preparing outcome budgets for five departments- works, water resources, panchayati raj, women and child development and rural development in 2010-11. ‘Outcome Budget’ was billed as a ‘performance tool’ to monitor not just the intermediate physical outlays that are more readily measurable but also the outcomes which are the end objectives.

 

“Our purpose is to ascertain what action has been taken by the administrative departments on the announcements made in the budget for 2012-13. They have to intimate us on the actionable steps taken so that the finance department can bare facts before the state legislative assembly for scrutiny by relevant house committees,” said a senior official of finance department.

“We are also in the process of setting up a budget Monitoring cell. The cell will have experts to appraise the implementation of various budgetary programmes,” he added.

The budget for 2012-13 had earmarked Rs 6 crore out of the State Plan for development of air strips and construction of a new airstrip at Malkangiri during 2012-13.

For health & family welfare department, the budget envisaged enhancement of intake capacity of all three medical colleges from 150 to 250 within a period of four years. Under this department head, there were proposals to launch ‘emergency medical ambulance services’ in 15 districts in the first phase to strengthen health security.

Similarly for rural development department, the budget has provided Rs 140 crore for construction of 100 bridges in the current fiscal under the Biju Setu Yojana in order to improve road network. The budget had also allocated Rs 195 crore towards state share of rural water supply and sanitation scheme for completion of 1,000 water supply projects and installation of 15,000 tube wells and sanitary wells.

To help combat left wing extremism, the Budet had a provision of Rs 4 crore as state share for skill development of youth in five districts. That apart, the budget had set aside Rs 50 crore for the state employment mission to provide placement linked skill training to one million youths during the 12th Five Year Plan.