Maharashtra tops in under-spending budget allocation

Maharashtra lagged behind in budget allocation and actual spending in education, health, agriculture and rural development sector during last few years. States like Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Kerala performed better and spent huge amount from their concern budget than that of Maharashtra.

An official from finance and planning said the state on average spend about 80 percent of their budget on revenue expenditure and remaining 20 percent on capital expenditure. “This means, only 20 percent amount used for the development works,” said an official.

A study report published by PRS Legislative Research on January 5 this year, stated rural development department witnessed the highest underspending (16 percent) followed by irrigation with 13 percent and social welfare for Scheduled Castes, Schedule Tribes and Other Backward Classes (13 percent). The report stated energy department has spent 17 percent more than their budget estimates. The agency studied the data from year 2011 to 2015. However, in a research for the period between 2014-15 and 2017-18 shows Maharashtra spent 19.7 percent on education in 2017-18 wheras the the state had spent 20.1 percent in 2014-15.

“In current fiscal year, the state has expected to spend 16 percent of their total expenditure on education,” said an official.

He added, typically, such expenditure is on schemes such as Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, construction and maintenance of school buildings and payment of teschers salaries. Delhi spent highest 24.9 percent on education.

Maharashtra also lags behind in investment for education and rural development sector