NEW DELHI: The Delhi government has again put restrictions on its expenditures given the position of ‘resources’ and for ‘better cash management’ during the coronavirus pandemic crisis.
The finance department issued a fresh order in this regard on Monday after withdrawing a week-old directive, which had allowed all department heads or administrative secretaries to incur expenditures as per the budget.
The restriction will remain in force till September 30.
As per the latest order, secretaries and HoDs are authorised to incur expenditures required for the day-to-day functioning of respective departments.
Spending such as salaries, allowances, medical reimbursement, power or water bills and other essential petty expenses including the purchase of stationery has also been allowed.
Payment of pension to senior citizens, widows, unemployment allowances to the disabled and immediate financial assistance to bereaved family members under the Delhi Family Benefits Scheme will also be permitted.
In addition to laundry and kitchen expenses of all the hospitals, the authorised officials may also incur expenditure related to the directorate to information and publicity.
For all other expenditures up to Rs 1 crore; the department will take necessary prior relaxation from the finance department, states the order.
The department will have to seek necessary relaxation from the Council of Ministers before incurring the expenditure “having financial implication of more than Rs 1 Crore” says the order.
Finance Minister Manish Sisodia in July had ordered all expenses to be authorised by his department as most expenses were to be focused on fighting the pandemic.
According to a senior government official, one of the probable reasons for reversing the order may be that the officials sanctioned ‘more’ expenditures in the past week.
“The secretaries and HoDs had been waiting for restrictions to go because they were facing a lot of difficulties in running urgent operations. They must have spent huge funds unpredictably. To keep funds for salaries and other Covid related expenditures, the government had to reintroduce the restrictions,” said the official.
Before the pandemic, projects worth Rs 25 crore needed approval by the head of departments, and projects worth Rs 50 crore needed to be authorised by the secretary of a particular department. Projects worth Rs 100 crore were to be approved by the Expenditure Finance Committee.
Another official said that the new order has increased the regulatory power of the finance department.
“The previous order has been withdrawn because of the financial situation. The government is trying to monitor the expenses closely,” said the official.