BHUBANESWAR: Despite wave after wave of Covid putting tremendous pressure on the health infrastructure and services and highlighting an urgent need for improvement, the state government has failed in timely utilisation of its own allocations for the Health and Family Welfare department in the budget 2021-22.
The state government had made a provision of Rs 1,898 crore for capital expenditure (capex) for the Health department this financial year which was to be used to develop health infrastructure and procure advanced medical equipment for hospitals across districts. Although as per the guidelines under the cash management system, around 60 per cent (pc) of the allocation should have been utilised by the third quarter of the fiscal, sources said that only Rs 548 crore, which is around 29 pc of the allocation, has been spent till December 31.
When the state is in the grip of the third wave of Covid-19 pandemic affecting healthcare services, the non-utilisation of funds meant for improvement of peripheral health infrastructure has come as a shocker. The budgetary allocation for capital expenditure of the Health Department was made despite the state economy contracting by 4.9 pc during 2020-21 fiscal under the impact of Covid-19. Higher public spending was required for stepping up growth in Odisha.
While economists have expressed doubts over utilisation of the rest two-third of the capex allocation in the next three months, the slow pace of funds utilisation has left the Finance Department disgruntled. It has asked the Health Department to take all necessary measures to ensure full utilisation of the allocation to induce growth in the economy through employment generation.
The dismal utilisation of funds sanctioned by the Ministry of Health under the Phase II of Emergency Covid Response Package (ECRP) to develop health infrastructure to tackle the third wave had also come under severe criticism.