Dispur to spend 54% of budget funds in 2 months!

Dispur to spend 54% of budget funds in 2 months!

Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI: Less than two months are to go for fiscal 2018-19 during which around 54 per cent of the budgetary allocations to various departments of the State government have to be spent. As to how such a huge amount of funds will be spent at the fag-end of the fiscal is anybody’s guess.

Such a shocking fact came to the fore on Tuesday when State Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma responded to queries on budgetary allocations of funds for various departments and their spending.

Sarma said that till January 31, 2019, Rs 4661268.44 lakh of the Rs 10086514.35 lakh of the budgetary allocations for various departments in the State has been released. It shows that only around 46 per cent of the budgetary allocations has been released. He said that funds allocated to departments in the budget are spent through various processes. The exact amount of funds spent, according to the minister, comes to the fore only when the Accountant General prepares the audit report of various departments, annually. He, however, said: “No State’s share to any department is pending. This has created a situation that lets central funds keep flowing without any hindrance for all centrally-sponsored schemes.”

Spending of MLAs’ local area development (MLALAD) Fund has not been smooth either during the current fiscal. Responding to another query, Sarma said: “So far, Rs 73 crore MLALAD Fund has been released in fiscal 2018-19. Now on, if any MLA doesn’t submit utilization certificate of the first installment, he/she is not supposed to get the subsequent installments.

We’re going to shift to the system of local area development funds being followed in the case of MPs. In this system, the local area development fund for a constituency remaining unspent in a particular financial year is being carried forward to the next fiscal. However, no funds will be released if the utilization certificate of an installment released is not submitted.”

However, some MLAs have their say on the submission of utilization certificates. They say that submission of utilization certificates largely depends on offices of deputy commissioners who actually monitor schemes that are adopted by MLAs. They allege that sometimes the DC offices release funds late, leading to failure in submitting utilization certificates on time. They appealed to the Finance Minister to find a way out to overcome this problem.

At present, the annual MLALAD fund in Assam is Rs 1 crore per LAC.

Replying to a supplementary question, Sarma said: “In some cases departments and government agencies often park the funds released in banks and draw interests, instead of spending them. So, we’re going to make the departments and agencies pay the interests of funds parked in banks to the State government. This is because the government has to borrow such funds from the market and pay interests.”

Top Headlines

No stories found.
Sentinel Assam
www.sentinelassam.com