Various Government departments incurred more than 50 per cent of Revenue/Capital Expenditure exceeding Rs10 crore each in respect of 74 schemes, including 100-per cent expenditure relating to 22 programmes, in the closing month of March 2015 contrary to Budget norms.
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India report on State Finances for the year ended March 2015, which was presented in the State Assembly recently, revealed this.
The CAG remarked that while the Rule 147 of the Odisha Budget Manual (OBM) regards rush of expenditure in the closing month of a financial year as breach of financial irregularity and advises to avoid such expenditure, the Government has incurred more than 50 per cent spending amounting to Rs2831.05 crore in March 2015. The amount includes 100-per cent spending amounting to Rs883.74 crore.
Besides, the report remarked that a whopping 79.46 per cent of the year’s total allocation amounting to Rs3139.52 crore was incurred in the 74 schemes during the last quarter of January to March.
The major heads under which 100 per cent of expenditure was incurred in March are Repair, Enovation and Restoration, Grant No 10 (Rs10 crore), Post Matric Scholarship and Stipend to OBC (Rs14.08 crore), Urban Sanitation Scheme (Rs10 crore), Maintenance of Roads and Bridge under ThFC (12.22 crore), three RIDF projects under Grant No 20 (Rs85.83 crore, Rs29.62 crore and Rs19.59 crore), Corpus Fund for the Odisha State Seeds Corporation ltd (Rs25 crore), Corpus Fund for Odisha State Cooperative Marketing (Rs75 crore), Demonstration of improved Choolah (Rs10 crore), three Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan projects under Grant No 28 (Rs40.12 crore, Rs15.42 crore and Rs32.24 crore), Rural Roads, Grant No 28 (Rs48 crore), Capex Programme for Development and Up-gradation of Distribution System (Rs67.34 crore), RIDF Grant 33 (Rs10.83 crore) and Implementation of e-Projects as per the National e-Governance Prgramme-one time ACA (Rs19.10 crore).