Maharashtra spent just 50% of allocated funds

The state departments spent just 50 per cent of the amount sanctioned for public health and water supply, school education and sanitation etc in April 2005.

Of the Rs 3,930 crore sanctioned to the 23 departments of the Maharashtra government for the month of April, more than Rs 2,000 crore remained unspent by April 30, 2005.

Confirming this, a senior government official said: "We have completed the cash flow assessment for April 2005. The exercise was undertaken by the office of the state accountant general "" so no intra-departmental bias is possible."

A large chunk of these funds was unutilised by the finance department itself, which faced a liquidity crunch in April and was forced to withhold payments to the tune of Rs 700 crore. These withheld payments were cleared in May.

"The fact that these departments are mainly entrusted with socially relevant spending, with the target beneficiaries comprising the socially dependent strata of society makes their inability to spend all the more disappointing," a senior government official said.

However, public health, water supply & sanitation and the school education departments were unable to provide clear answers as to why they were unable to spend the Rs 150 crore that was allocated to each department for April, 2005, on the basis of their own estimations.

"Not fair," said a senior water resources department official. "It would be a suitable exercise to assess how many proposals for spending that were raised before the finance department were not granted permission. After all, there is an upper limit to autonomous spending by individual departments. We have to seek permission from the finance department for projects above a certain limit," the official added.

The government official said the department officials were aware of the upper limit to spending and should have either restricted their spending proposals or pursued with the finance department more rigorously.

He added that till the current fiscal 2005-2006 the various departments of the state government were only required to ensure their individual budgets were utilised by the end of the year.

"The month of March normally witnesses heightened activity with files being cleared with alacrity by suddenly conscientious government officials. Most of these departments blamed the inadequate sanctioning of funds as a reason for a lack of development. In the current fiscal, the budget for each department was made on the basis of their own estimations of expenditure for each month of the year. Now they need to change their mindset and start spending as per their own calculations," he said.