While spending in the infrastructure sector has increased in a big way, expenditure in the social sector has gone down, causing concern among the top brass of the State administration.
less spending in the social sector has come as a rude shock for the programme administrators because the State Government is emphasising on more and more social care for the people.
The State Plan expenditures by the School & Mass Education, ST & SC Development and other social sector departments have slowed down in comparison to the corresponding period of 2015-16.
While the plan administrators are broadly satisfied over the spending in the infrastructure sector, it is a worrisome matter for them that the expenditure in the social sector has gone down by 2.26 per cent.
The social sector spending by July 31, 2016 was 23.35 per cent, which was 25.61 per cent as on July 31, 2015.
The latest review on the State Plan expenditure reveals that by the end of July 29.04 per cent of the Annual Budget is already spent compared to 26.10 per cent during the corresponding period of 2015-16.
While the allotment increase in Annual Budget provision was 13.65 per cent, spending has gone up by more than double the rise.
The sector-wise review of expenditure reveals by July 31, 2016, spending in this ever-demanding sector has entailed Rs 4,591 crore, which is 40.67 per cent of the Budget Estimates (BE). This expenditure was 31.74 per cent by July 31, 2015. While spending of 49.49 per cent of the Budget Estimate by the Department of Rural Development tops the list, the Department of Works has already spent 40.46 per cent of the BE.
The Energy Department’s spending has gone up at 32.02 per cent while the Housing & Urban Development has spent 20.82 per cent of the BE. The spending in the agriculture and allied sector has gone up to 32.45 per cent, which was 26.09 per cent during corresponding period of 2015-16.
The Department of Water Resources (DoWR) tops the list with 43.91 per cent, which is an all-time record as the spending during the corresponding period of 2015-16 was only 29.65 per cent. The agriculture sector spending was 23.12 per cent while fisheries and ARD sector registered an expenditure of 19.64 per cent. So, the higher expenditure in the agriculture and allied sector was mainly on account more spending by the DoWR.
Out of the BE of Rs 4,957.18 crore of the DoWR, the spending was Rs 1,470.03 crore.
However, the BE expenditure is not matched by revenue generation, which seems to be a worrying factor for the financial Administrators.
Tax collection is less than previous year though the growth was expected.
Sales Tax collection was Rs 4,400 crore while Stamp and Registration duty collection went down by over 50 per cent. Similar is collection of land revenue, which is less than 22 per cent during the corresponding period of 2015-16.
Non-tax revenue generation has also gone down by 21.46 per cent as collection by July31 was Rs 1,555.75 crore compared to Rs 1,980.82 crore on July 31, 2015.
The mining sector revenue has gone down by 25.72 per cent as the collection up to July 31, 2015 was Rs 1,506.69 crore, which dipped to Rs 1,119.20 crore.