UP govt depts scramble to use funds before they lapse
LUCKNOW: A large chunk of funds allocated to various departments of the state government remain unused even as the financial year (2019-2020) comes to a close on March 31, 2020.
Although a final picture about the total allocations made and the funds used will be clear only in next two weeks, different departments are making lastditch efforts to make use of the budgetary funds before they lapse by the end of the current financial year.
A high level review that the state government conducted last month showed that only about half of the budgetary funds were used by January 2020.
A close scrutiny of the data presented at the performance review up to January 2020 indicated that the state government was able to release sanctions for Rs 331,418.18 crore only against the total budgetary provision of Rs 526,809.21 crore in 2019-2020. Out of the total sum released, only Rs 269,027.55 crore was spent by January 2020.
This showed only 51% use of budgetary allocations and 81% of the total sanctions issued by January 2020. However, chief secretary RK Tiwari said there has been a considerable improvement in the situation since the review and he hoped that it has already improved in some departments.
Major departments that have failed to use a large chunk of funds include basic education department that utilised only Rs 38016.49 crore. This comes to 84.96% of the sanctions issued for Rs 44747.10 crore and 63.48% of budgetary provisions of Rs 59,879.69 crore.
In the rural development department, the total sum spent was Rs 5757.19 crore against the sanctions issued for Rs 8599.66 crore and budgetary provision of Rs 22481.26 crore.
The figures show the department used 66.94% of sanctions issued and 25.60% of budgetary allocations.
The urban development department used only Rs 5132.62 crore against sanction of Rs 5606.02 crore and budgetary allocation of Rs 14103.84 crore. This showed use of 91.55% of sanctions issued and 36.39% of the budgetary allocations.
The public works department (PWD) issued sanctions for Rs 18,800.46 crore (78.95%) and spent Rs 14844.08 crore (62.93%) of the budgetary allocation of Rs 23,584.82 crore.
The state energy department issued sanctions for Rs 26,126.28 crore (68.87%) and spent Rs 24,352.47 crore (64.19%) against the budgetary allocation of Rs 37934.72 crore.
The state government expected to get Rs 80,299.13 crore as central assistance for different departments under various schemes in 2019-2020.
By January 2020, the state government was, however, able to get only Rs 50,647.01 crore.
In the meantime, the state finance department has asked the additional chief secretaries/ principal secretaries of various departments to ensure that the financial sanctions and the allocation of funds made against them reach the respective drawing and disbursing officers by March 20, 2020.
Additional chief secretary, finance, Sanjiv Mittal has issued a circular dated March 5, 2020 in this regard, asking all the drawing and disbursing officers to raise the bills for the sanctions issued to the treasury by March 25 to ensure that all the payments are cleared by March 31.
A senior officer, who refused to be named, confirmed the performance of different departments was reviewed at the top level and officers were being asked to ensure maximum possible utilisation of funds.