Three departments of the Orissa government- health and family welfare, school and mass education and women & child development have reported dismal expenditure of their budgetary allocations in the first quarter of this fiscal.
While the departments of health & family welfare has spent only 0.11 per cent of its budgetary allocation in the April-June period of 2010-11, the same for the school and mass education department is only 4.22 per cent with the women & child development department trailing at 1.95 per cent.
Taking into account the overall allocation, including the Plan as well as Non-Plan outlays of the Centre and the state government, the expenditure incurred by the departments of health & family welfare, school and mass education and women & child development stands at 5.85 per cent, 3.2 per cent and 5.35 per cent respectively.
The woeful performance by these departments is despite the fact the 'Cash Management System' has been introduced in these departments. The objective of the 'Cash Management System' as envisaged in the State Budget for 2010-11, is to ensure timely expenditure of outlays and avoid a rush of expenditure in the last quarter of any fiscal.
As per the 'Cash Management System' (CMS) 15 per cent of the expenditure has to be incurred in the first quarter of a fiscal, 15 per cent in the second quarter, 30 per cent in the penultimate quarter and 45 per cent in the last quarter.The expenditure of five departments where the CMS has been introduced was reviewed today.
"The big challenge for the state government is timely expenditure of funds and the low spending departments have been advised to improve on the expenditure front”, said state finance minister Prafulla Chandra Ghadai. Apart from Ghadai, health & family welfare minister Prasanna Acharya and school & mass education minister Pratap Jena were present at the meeting.The two other departments where the CMS has been introduced are panchayati raj and higher education. While panchayati raj department has spent 26.97 per cent of the budgetary allocation in the first quarter, the department of higher education has spent 16.45 per cent in the same period.CMS would soon be introduced in five other departments- works, rural development, irrigation, water resources and agriculture.It may be noted that only 7.96 per cent of the total budgetary allocation has been spent by 34 departments in the April-June period of the current financial year as against the stipulated norm of 15 per cent for the first quarter of any fiscal.
Out of the total budgetary provision of Rs 10,200 crore for 2010-11, only Rs 811.99 crore has been spent by these departments, Planning and Coordination minister A U Singh Deo had earlier said in the state assembly.