Budget preparation: Dispensable' plans face cuts funds

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Woefully short of cash, finance minster T.M. Thomas Isaac will be more punctilious this time. While preparing the Budget for the 2018-19 fiscal he will judiciously desist from making allocations to budget heads that have consistently remained under-utilised. The finance department has identified certain schemes and projects that can be ignored without much of a bother. The objective is to save at least Rs 500 crore by rationalising outgo to certain projects.

“We will be looking at dispensable schemes, those that will not hurt the government politically even if some crores were shaved off it,” a top finance department official said. By “dispensable” the official meant schemes and projects for which money had been allocated annually in a routine manner, almost like a habit, but had never really needed much of what had been granted. Majority of such schemes fall under family welfare, urban development, SC/ST welfare, agriculture, and miscellaneous economic services like irrigation and rural development.

Take for instance the nearly Rs 50 crore allocated for the training of health visitors engaged in public health work. More than Rs 40 crore has been left unspent. Or for instance, the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission that had not utilised Rs 446 crore of the Rs 472 crore allotted to it. The uptake of Kerala Sustainable Urban Development Project, too, has been almost as poor; Rs 250 crore was the allocation and only Rs 50 crore was utilised. There are schemes that have not utilised even a single rupee allotted to them. Take the provision given under the ‘industries’ for the revival or diversification of PSUs.

A total of Rs 280 crore was budgeted during the last three fiscals. The entire amount has been left unused. Same is the case of NABARD-assisted project for strengthening the Mullaperiyar dam. Not a penny of the Rs 65 crore allocated during the last three fiscals was utilised. “It is not as if we are blocking funds to these projects, it is just that we will rationalise the allocation to these schemes,” the official said.