The Rs2 cess we pay every time we buy a litre of diesel or petrol for the corpus — Central Road Funds (CROREF) — meant to aid the construction of the country’s roads isn’t being properly utilised by the State Governments. Nearly Rs16,000 crore of the total CROREF of Rs28,500 crore accumulated during the last three fiscals (2011-12 to 2013-14) remains unused with the Centre due to under-utilisation by the State Governments, with those from the North-East being the worst performers.
latest data with the Ministry of Roads, Transport and Highways (MoRTH) shows that in the last fiscal year (2013-14,) Rs4,479 crore of Rs9,881 crore is lying unspent with the Centre. Similarly, for the years 2011-12 and 2012-13, Rs6,438 crore of Rs8,441 crore and Rs4,752 crore of Rs10,200 crore respectively are remaining in the unspent kitty. Most unspent funds are lying in the fund corpus of the North-Eastern States where road development, in the last six years, has been at an average pace of 0.52 kilometres per day.
In 2013-14, Arunachal Pradesh, which accrued Rs42 crore sought only Rs33 crore. Assam which collected about Rs46 crore asked for Rs18 crore. Manipur sought Rs6 crore out of Rs12 crore. Meghalaya sought Rs11 crore out of Rs14 crore. Mizoram sought close to Rs6 crore of Rs11 crore. Tripura sought Rs4 crore of Rs6 crore. Nagaland was the worst performer as it sought no funds from its Rs9 crore corpus.
“The under-utilisation of funds in the North-Eastern States is mostly because construction activity has moved at a snail’s pace in the past decade. Moreover, road building proposals from these States have been far and few,” said an official from MoRTH.
“Another reason for fund accrual is that unless the States submit utilisation certificates of previous releases, we cannot disburse new funds. The fund, however, is non-lapsable. The States have to be proactive in their use of funds so that we release their share,” said the official.
But N-E States are not the only poor performers. In 2013-14 itself, States like Gujarat Rs40 crore), Odisha (Rs40 crore), Jammu & Kashmir (Rs35 crore) and Chhattisgarh (Rs24 crore) have unused funds against their name. The total funds accumulated are thus, much higher due to under-utilisation even in previous years.
“The States are free to ask for funds from the unspent balance of the previous years. Once the States submit their utilisation certificates of past funds, fresh money is disbursed to them,” said an official from MoRTH. The official said that fund utilisation of the CROREF funds used to be abysmal previously but it has vastly improved in the last five years.
The tax on fuel has been levied since 2000-01 under the Central Road Fund Act, 2000, according to which 50 per cent of the tax on High Speed Diesel (HSD) and all the money from the tax on petrol was to be spent on development and maintenance of National Highways, construction of railway over- or under-bridges and for development and maintenance of roads, other than National Highways, or roads of economic importance. While the tax started as Rs1 per litre on petrol and HSD oil in 2000-01, in 2003, it was increased to Rs1.50 per litre and in 2005, it was raised by another 0.50 paise for the development of highways.