BHUBANESWAR: The State Government could spend only 37 per cent of the State’s budget till September 2019, during the first six months of the financial year, Finance Minister Niranjan Pujari informed the Assembly on Monday.
The issue cropped up during the question hour with Opposition members coming down heavily on the State Government for its failure to spend the budgeted amount for different departments.
Several ruling BJD members also expressed concern over low expenditure of sanctioned amount which has hampered progress of development projects.
Replying to a question from Bhupinder Singh (BJD) and supplementaries from other members, the Minister said Rs 53,265 crore out of the total budget of Rs 1,46,609 crore has been spent till September this year.
He attributed the low spending of funds to the imposition of model code of conduct for polls in the State, incessant rainfall and two back-to-back cyclones.
The Minister said the Government has set a target to spend at least 60 per cent of the budget by December this year.