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Ministries squeeze Plan spending

BS Economy Bureau in New Delhi

The Centre is concerned at the low level of Plan expenditure by at least 20 major ministries, compared to the surge in the non-Plan expenditure in the first half of 2002-03.

An analysis of the revenue and expenditure trends among the ministries show while the revenue receipts have been inadequate, some of the ministries like the communications and IT ministry have booked a 135 per cent rise in the non-Plan expenditure over the Budget estimates for 2002-03.

The total non-Plan expenditure of the communications ministry is Rs 118 crore (Rs 1.18 billion).

Keeping it company is the ministry of agriculture, whose non-Plan expenditure has also shot up to touch 81 per cent of the Budget estimates against 70 per cent booked in the same period in 2001-02.

The Budget estimate for the ministry on this head is Rs 923 crore (Rs 9.23 billion). The trend in expenditure indicates that the revised estimates for these two ministries may have to be further revised upwards.

In the same period, non-tax revenue collections by the department of posts and telecommunications has been only 30 per cent of the Budget estimates.

But reflecting the skewed pattern of expenditure, around 20 ministries have booked Plan expenditure as low as 1-20 per cent of their Budget estimates.

These include the ministries of heavy industries, coal, small-scale industries and civil aviation.

The ministries find it easier to book expenditure on the non-Plan head because there are far less controls on such expenses.

But the Plan expenditure, which actually creates investment in the economy, operates under more stringent conditions.

As a result, while the department of telecommunications has over-booked on the non-Plan expenditure, it has booked only around 8 per cent of the Budget estimate of Rs 183 crore under the Plan head.

Similarly, the ministry of power, which had wrangled Rs 3,300 crore (Rs 33 billion) under the Plan programmes, has booked only 7 per cent of the Budget estimate at Rs 230 crore (Rs 2.3 billion).

This is not because the first half is slower compared to the second half of the year, but because in the same period of 2001-02, the department had booked an astonishing 111 per cent of the Plan expenditure.

The power ministry had booked 23 per cent of its projected Plan expenditure, while the ministry of small-scale industries had booked only 5 per cent.

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