NEW DELHI: Ongoing assessment of Swadesh Darshan Scheme (SDS) and suspension of global media publicity due to the coronavirus pandemic resulted in lower budget spending in 2021-22, the ministry of tourism has informed the parliamentary standing committee on transport, tourism and culture.
The Union ministry’s reply was in response to a remark made by the committee in its report. The panel noted that only 47.7 per cent of the total allocation was spent in 10 months of the financial year. “Pursuant to the recommendations of the Committee, suitable instructions were given to the programme divisions of the ministry to apply due diligence while projecting budgetary requirements.
The ministry is closely monitoring the expenditure status periodically at the highest level,” read the ministry’s reply quoted in the submission made pursuant to the 338th report of the panel submitted in Rajya Sabha in December.
In the ministry’s report, the standing committee had noted “substantial underutilisation” of the budget allocation during 2021-22. The committee observed that a resource-constrained country like India cannot afford to keep a vast chunk of its resources locked up, surrendering it towards the end of the financial year.
As a result it recommended that realistic projection of fund requirements should be given utmost priority at the highest level of the ministry. The ministry must also pay attention to streamlining its monitoring mechanism and ensure optimal deployment and utilisation of its financial resources, the ministry’s report said. The committee further suggested that steps are taken to ensure greater fiscal prudence and see to it that unspent budgetary provisions are surrendered timely in future.
However, the tourism ministry submitted that there were several reasons which led to reduced expenditure during the first two quarters of the financial year 2021-22. “The pandemic situation was still prevailing in the country and the implementation of various schemes of the ministry was severely affected. Further, the Swadesh Darshan Scheme was under review by the government and no new projects were sanctioned during the year,” the tourism ministry said.
“The global media publicity was not carried out due to the pandemic situation and ban on operation of international commercial flights resulting in lack of international tourism,” the ministry further said.
On timely surrender of the unspent budgetary provisions, the ministry said that it had taken some time since it required a systematic review of the allocation to be made to each scheme or components of a scheme and non-scheme activities in view of the reduced allocation.
“However, as per the recommendation of the committee, the ministry would certainly make all efforts to intimate the technical surrender at the earliest,” the ministry said in its reply in Parliament.
‘Media engagement also nil during pandemic’
“The global media publicity was not carried out due to the pandemic situation and ban on operation of international commercial flights resulting in lack of international tourism,” the ministry of tourism said. On timely surrender of the unspent budgetary provisions, the ministry said that it had taken some time since it required a systematic review of the allocation to be made to each scheme or components of a scheme and non-scheme activities in view of the reduced allocation.
Pandemic hurt tourism