THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With just a couple of days left in the 2015-16 fiscal, plan fund utilisation is not expected to touch 70 per cent. This performance is as disappointing as the last fiscal. The utilisation during 2014-15 was 68.37 per cent, the lowest in over a decade.
The UDF government has stepped up plan outlays considerably every year, but has invariably failed to achieve the target. The state government had ambitiously fixed the outlay for the 2015-16 fiscal at Rs 27,686.32 crore, 16.66 per cent higher than the 2014-15 outlay of Rs 20,000 crore.
And for the second consecutive fiscal, the actual utilisation will fall short by an embarrassing margin. “The Chandy government might have scored some brownie points by scaling up the outlay every year, but the tragedy is that the utilisation this fiscal will fall lower than even the plan outlay fixed for 2011-12 or 2012-13 fiscals,” said Jacob Seba-stian, finance expert.
Mr Sebastian is not way off the mark. As on March 29, the 2015-16 utilisation is Rs 12,772 crore. The plan outlay for 2011-12 was Rs 12,010 crore, and that for 2012-13, Rs 14,010 crore.
“This might perhaps be one of the lowest utilisations ever, but it reflects the true expenditure during the fiscal unlike in previous years when figures were merely fudged to create an illusion of 80-90 per cent utilisation,” a top finance department official said. As a fiscal enters its last days, it is usual for government departments to draw huge amounts as cash and DDs to avoid lapse of allocated amounts.
Though the utilisation was generally poor, with six departments recording less than 30 per cent utilisation, three departments (public works, sports and finance) have utilised more than 100 per cent. This time, plan funding has acquired a unique pattern.
Sectors like social justice and transport that were considered laggards during previous fiscals have spend the most this time while consistent performers like tourism have shown an unprecedented dullness. Power and education, too, have fared badly.
