The pattern emerging from allocation of funds under State Plan in the Supplementary Budget and the funds surrendered at the end of the fiscal by different departments of the Government is bound to disturb policy and financial planners in Odisha.
While the State Government is making more provisions for Supplementary demand to accelerate the development process, the lion’s share of the funds is surrendered without any utilization at the end of the financial year, said sources.
Decision makers in the State are veritably a worried lot. When they are making huge allotment of funds for developmental programme, more amounts of funds of the Supplementary Budget provisions are just surrendered.
This is an ever growing trend and it no doubt defeats the very purpose of the State Government, acknowledged insiders in the State administration familiar with the process.
In comparison to Supplementary Budget allocations, more funds were surrendered under State Plan during 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2014-15.
During 2009-10, Supplementary Provision under State Plan was Rs 1, 321 crore, where as Rs1, 391 crore was surrendered by end of the fiscal.
Similarly, provision under Supplementary grants during 2010-11 was Rs 1,185 crore and surrendered amount was Rs 1,190 crore.
In 2011-12, different departments were favored with Rs1, 801 crore under State Plan in Supplementary Provisions, whereas departments surrendered Rs 2,177 crore.
This disturbing trend exposing the poor spending capacity of the officials was also repeated in 2012-13 when various developmental departments surrendered Rs 2,854 crore against allocation of Rs 2,677 crore.
However, a break in this disturbing pattern was observed in 2013-14 as the surrendered amount was Rs1, 623 crore against the Supplementary Provision of Rs 2,809 crore.
But in 2014-15, while Rs1, 494 crore was given in State Plan in the Supplementary Budget, a whopping Rs 10, 469 crore was surrendered.
Senior officials in the Department of Finance said as the fund flow from the Centre has gone down and grants are not being released as per expected lines, more funds are being surrendered by various departments as they are unable to take up development projects under various Centrally Sponsored Schemes during 2014-15.
Notably, in a significant revelation, a report of the State Government recently stated that major developmental programmes have suffered due to non-spending over Rs 6,000 crore of funds stashed in various banks.
Apparently keeping this in view, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik harped on both more revenue generation and more spending on developmental projects while addressing a recent meeting of the Council of Ministers.
