The total expenditure recorded by all departments of the state government stood at Rs 16,153.56 crore in the April-September period which is 35.08 per cent of the total plan provision of Rs 46,047.75 crore for the current fiscal.
Of the 38 functional departments, six departments- panchayati raj, forest & environment, agriculture, parliamentary affairs, textiles & handloom and cooperation have logged expenditure levels beyond 50 per cent.
The department of cooperation has been the best performing department, registering an expenditure level of 65.15 per cent in the said period. The department has spent Rs 129.09 crore out of the total provision of Rs 198.14 crore. Next to cooperation is the department of textiles & handloom that clocked an expenditure of 55.47 per cent. As against the total provision of Rs 101.89 crore earmarked for the department, the actual spending was Rs 56.52 crore.
The departments of panchayati raj, forest & environment, agriculture, parliamentary affairs have achieved expenditure levels of 51.06 per cent, 51.80 per cent, 53.27 per cent and 50.11 per cent respectively. The panchayati raj department spent Rs 1,113.99 crore by September-end compared to total provision of Rs 2,181.74 crore for 2011-12. The Plan and Non-Plan expenditure incurred by forest & environment department stood at Rs 315.78 crore as against a provision of Rs 609.61 crore. Similarly, for agriculture department, of the total provision of Rs 1,167.98 crore, the spending till the end of September was Rs 622.14 crore.
The department of planning & coordination recently reviewed the progress on expenditure made by all departments during April-September.
A U Singhdeo, minister for planning & coordination said, “We have asked the low spending departments to spend more. Those departments that have not submitted the utilization certificates have been asked to submit the same. In the Supplementary Budget for 2011-12, more funds will be allocated to departments that have shown good performance on the expenditure front.” The minister declined to name the low spending departments.
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“The spending levels of some of the departments have shown a marked increase especially after introduction of the Cash Management System. On the other hand, for departments like energy, industries and rural development where projects have been bogged down by delay in necessary clearances, the expenditure has not been to the desired level,” a senior official of finance department told Business Standard.
Cash Management System was introduced by the finance department last fiscal in 10 departments- School & Mass Education, Rural Development, Housing & Urban Development, Health & Family Welfare, Panchayati Raj, Water Resources, Agriculture, Women & Child Development, Higher Education and Works.
This system was extended to five more departments- industries, energy, fisheries & animal resources department, SC & ST Development and forest in this fiscal.
The system stipulated that the departments had to spend 60 per cent of the expenditure in the April-December period of any fiscal while the balance 40 per cent was to be spent in the last quarter including an expenditure limit of up to 15 per cent in the last month. The system was introduced to avoid rush in expenditure, especially in the last quarter of a fiscal.
The departments whose spending has been below satisfactory include science & technology (23.58 per cent), rural development (20.96 per cent), energy (11.56 per cent) and information technology (10.17 per cent).