Lucknow: The bonhomie between the Samajwadi Party
(SP) government in the state and the United Progressive Alliance (UPA)
government notwithstanding, the two seem headed for a
confrontation. This, as the UP government has failed to spend
large amounts of the budget of central government-aided schemes
and projects as the financial year draws to a close.
Senior officials told IANS that in most schemes, including the
Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan, and MGNREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural
Employment Guarantee Scheme), the Prime Minister Gram Sadak Yojna
(for better road connectivity in rural areas) and the National
Rural Health Mission (NRHM), the Akhilesh Yadav government had
"abjectly failed to utilise funds."
The situation, officials point out, had come to such a pass that
MGNREGS was headed to a grinding halt in the state.
Officials admit that with the large amounts - about 57 percent -
of central funds under various scheme heads still unspent,
utilisation certificates of the same will not be submitted; that
could lead to stalling of further funds in the current financial
year 2013-14.
"Political leaders of the two ruling parties can only thrash out
things, or else it's a very gloomy picture," admitted a senior
bureaucrat.
As a result of the delay in spending the funds, development work
and schemes have suffered in a big way in Bundelkhand and
Poorvanchal, priority areas for both the state and union
governments.
Rs.7,003 crore (over Rs.70 billion) has been allocated to Uttar
Pradesh under the rural employment guarantee scheme and the first
installment of Rs.1,400 crore was slashed to Rs.1,170 crore as the
state had failed to utilise Rs.1,654 crore it was allocated in
2011-2012.
The UP government had requested UPA II to release the remaining
Rs.300 crore, but the request has received lukewarm response from
the centre, largely due to the non-utilisation of funds
previously, an official said.
"We are not sure when the second installment of MGNREGS will come,
or even if it will, at all," one official quipped.
In the Sarv Shiksha Abhiyaan (scheme for universal education) too
the situation is no different. The state government has only spent
59.77 percent of the Rs.1,150.20 crore allocated to it under this
scheme.
The centrally aided scheme to promote education got Uttar Pradesh
a whopping Rs.6,110.30 crore for the last financial year, but the
state has failed to spend Rs.606.88 crore from the previous year,
thus jeopardizing any further release of funds.
In the National Agriculture Development Planning Scheme, the state
got a share of Rs.400 crore in its kitty, but has been able to
spend only a meagre 37.31 percent in the last nine months.
This scheme, aimed at helping raise pulse production and at
helping farmers tide over crisis in excessive rainfall areas, has
hence proved to be a dud for the state government.
The situation on the infrastructure front is equally abysmal: the
state government has only utilized 8.41 percent of the funds
(Rs.674.47 crore) allocated to it under the Pradhanmantri Gram
Sadak Yojna. This, despite the fact that chief minister Akhilesh
Yadav misses no opportunity to proclaim his government's priority
to connect villages with main link roads. The union government
allocated Rs.425 crores for UP in the current budget, but with
non-utilisation of major funds provided to the state last year,
any further release of funds is unlikely.
Though successive governments have projected themselves as
harbingers of change and development in the impoverished
Bundelkhand and Poorvanchal areas, the central fund under this
head is a poor show.
Of the Rs.400 crore given last year, the state government had only
spend 27 percent of the funds by November: So much for one year of
the Samajwadi Party (SP) government, which came to power with a
whopping majority last year, arousing much hope.
(Mohit Dubey can be contacted at mohit.d@ians.in)
|