The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has taken strong exception on non-utilisation of budgetary funds sought through supplementary budget by the Uttar Pradesh government during 2013-14 saying “it was against budgetary principles.”.
In its latest Finance Account report for the year ending 2013-14, which was tabled in the state assembly recently, the CAG said that the state government requisitioned and received Rs 10,773.15 crore as supplementary budget in 2013-14 but it failed to utilize the full amount. The CAG it is report said that against this the government’s requisition of Rs 10,773 crore the government utilized only Rs 7621 crore. The unutilised amount of Rs 3,152.06 crore was 29 per cent of total allocation.
“The non-utilisation of this amount affected implementation of 48 projects,” the report said. The report said that supplementary budget provisions are made to meet expenditure where the main budget provision have become or are expected to become inadequate. The government then seeks assembly’s permission to withdraw additional amount for implementation of the on-going projects.
The CAG has also made an adverse comment on the UP government for rushing to spend the budgetary grants during the end of the financial year. It said that during 2013-14, around 23.37 per cent of the total revenue expenditure and 50.11 per cent of the total capital expenditure was incurred during the month of March alone.
“This is a wrong practice. The budgetary allocations should be utilized in time bound manner. This is the known monetary practice,” the report said. The opposition parties have criticized Akhilesh Government for not utilization of funds. BJP spokesman Vijay Bahadur Pathak said that his party had been raising issue since long. “We have given documentary proof to show that the Akhilesh Yadav Government has not used the budget meant for important departments like PWD, Health and Irrigation,” Pathak said.
“Non-utilisation of supplementary grants is serious offence. This means Government sought funds with no intention of using it. If it did not have the proposals why it sought additional funds,” Pathak asked. In this budget session, which started on February 18, BJP had boycotted Government’s address to the joint session saying there was no need of budget session as Government has failed to utilize funds.