BHUBANESWAR: Even as the state government’s budget has substantially increased over the last five years, at least Rs 1.46 lakh crore of the funds remain unspent raising serious questions over the budget preparation process.
Pointing out the lacunae, the CAG in its report on state finances for the year ending March 2022, stated the large amount of savings in allotted funds indicates both inaccurate assessment of requirements as well as inadequate capacity to utilise funds for intended purposes.
The unspent amount varied from 17.4 per cent to 39.51 per cent between 2017-18 and 2021-22. While out of the budget of Rs 1,06,911 crore in 2017-18, Rs 21,206 crore remained unspent, in 2019-20 Rs 24,777.71 crore was unutilised out of the budget proposal of Rs 1,32,660 crore. The highest amount of Rs 43,554.13 crore was unspent in 2020-21 out of the budget of Rs 1,50,000 crore.
The CAG maintained the release of funds in the last week of the financial year resulting in such huge unspent balance. An examination of sanction orders issued during 2021-22 revealed the government had released Rs 1,614.78 crore for the implementation of different schemes in 11 departments in the last week of March 2022. Of this, Rs 1,292.36 crore was released on March 31, 2022. As such there was no possibility of utilisation of these funds during 2021-22.
The implementation of several schemes was affected because of the practice of the state government. CAG has listed several such projects which suffered because of the delays. Of these, Rs 1,043.06 crore was released for National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) on the last day of the financial year. Other schemes that suffered because of this included Jal Jeevan Mission, Rashtriya Krishi Vikash Yojana and POSAN Abhiyan.
The Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water department accounted for 80.71 per cent of the total amount released on the last day of the financial year. The CAG observed that the release of funds on the last day indicated that the funds were released primarily to exhaust the budget provision.