BHUBANESWAR: The emphasis on infrastructure development, employment generation and fiscal prudence notwithstanding, the state government is facing challenges in budget utilisation with at least 16 out of 44 departments failing to spend even half of their allocated funds by the end of January.
According to official data, while key sectors such as healthcare, education, and works have seen steady fund disbursal, several departments, including Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water (PR&DW), ST and SC Development, Minorities and Backward Classes, Housing and Urban Development (H&UD), Sports, and Energy have lagged in expenditure.
The departments with lowest utilisation are Disaster Management (13.5 per cent), Sports and Youth Services (19.77 per cent), Steel and Mines (20.5 per cent), Mission Shakti (23 per cent), Odia Language, Literature and Culture (27 per cent), PR&DW (38 per cent) and Tourism (38 per cent).
Other low spending departments include Law (42 per cent), ST&SC (43.6 per cent), H&UD (44.8 per cent), Energy (46 per cent), Transport (47 per cent) and Electronics and IT (47.4 per cent). Of a whopping Rs 2.77 lakh crore budget including Rs 12,155 crore supplementary allocations approved for 2024-25 fiscal, the 16 departments account for around Rs 71,000 crore.
Sources attributed the general elections, delayed project approvals, procurement delays, large-scale vacancies, monsoon disruptions and issues in central fund flow to the reasons behind the slow pace of expenditure.
While several departments struggle with administrative delays in project approvals, leading to slow fund disbursal and execution, lengthy tendering and procurement processes have slowed down spending in some departments.
Economists said the inability to spend allocated funds efficiently could hinder the growth trajectory and impact the economy. Crucial rural development projects affecting employment generation and social welfare programmes, will be delayed.
Former chief secretary Sahadev Sahoo said the departments should have spent 60 per cent of the budget allocated to them by the end of third quarter (December), but low spending has been the trend for the last few years which indicates inefficient administrative execution. The government must identify the bottlenecks and streamline fund disbursement to ensure that projects are implemented as planned, he said. Acknowledging underutilisation of budget, a senior official of the Finance department said, “We are monitoring the situation and expect spending to accelerate in the last two months of this fiscal.”