When the State Government is going for market borrowing to fund its capital expenditure commitments, to the utter consternation of financial experts, more and more of its departments are surrendering huge funds.
The State Government after long nine years has gone for market borrowing of Rs 3,000 crore and is insisting on more spending on capital outlay. However barring Department of Works, all other engineering departments have failed to live up to the expectation, said a senior official of the State Government.
The Department of Finance, which has been religiously following the Financial Responsibility and Budget Management Act, has asked at least 13 development departments to surrender the unspent amount to the State exchequer soon, said a senior officer, adding that all payments for the defaulting departments would be suspended. As per an estimate Rs 3,558.26 crore is to be surrendered to the State exchequer by Thursday, said he.
Department of Housing and Urban Development (DoHUD) which tops the list of surrendering departments with Rs 673.48 crore has been continuously surrendering huge amounts as spending has slowed down in this important development department. Social sector spending has also gone down with the Department of Women and Child Development (DoWCD) surrendering Rs 561.39 crore.
While Department of School and Mass Education (DoSME) will be surrendering Rs 495.83 crore, Department of Health and Family Welfare (DoHFW) is all set to surrender Rs 323.24 crore. Even as the infrastructure sector is the major thrust of the Odisha Government, the Department of Water Resources, Energy and Rural Development are going to surrender huge amount of allocated funds, said a senior official informing that all these three departments will be surrendering Rs 1,125 crore and it is all time high.
However, as far as spending is concerned, the Department of Works (DoW) stands on the top position and has been successful in implementing infrastructural projects on timely basis. Chief Secretary GC Pati has expressed satisfaction over the performance of the DoW, said sources familiar with the development. Sources said, due to Principal Secretary NK Pradhan’s continuous monitoring of the projects coupled with field visits to take stock of the progress in the field, the performance of the department has been good. “That is why DoW is on the top of the “spending departments.”