India News | Parl Panel Raps Tribal Affairs Ministry for Under-utilisation of Funds

New Delhi, Mar 14 (PTI) A parliamentary standing committee has rapped the tribal affairs ministry for under-utlisation of funds and asked it to make sincere efforts to improve its spending so that people get benefits of schemes.

In its report presented to Parliament on Monday, it also took note of reduction in the ministry's budgetary allocations since 2020-21 and said it could not convince the finance ministry on this.

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"The committee finds that initially the budgetary allocations of Rs 7,355.76 crore and Rs 7,084.07 crore were made for the Ministry of Tribal Affairs for the years 2020-21 and 2021-22 respectively, to administer their central sector and centrally-sponsored schemes besides two official programmes-- Special Central Assistance to Tribal Sub-scheme and Grants-in-Aid under Article 275(1) of the Constitution," the parliamentary panel said.

However, the allocation was reduced to Rs 5,472.50 crore in 2020-21 and Rs 6126.46 crore in 2021-22 at the revised estimate (RE) stage, it said.

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"Surprisingly, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs could not even spend fully the RE allocation in 2020-21 and has been able to spend Rs 4,070.04 crore in 2021-22 up to February 15, 2022, leaving apart the cut in allocation made by the Ministry of Finance for all ministries due to COVID-19," the panel said.

The reason cited by the tribal affairs ministry was that both the governmental and non-government agencies had not been able to completely carry out the field level activities due to the COVID-19 pandemic and also that the states could not utilise the amount released to them by the ministry and furnish utlisation certificates.

"Nonetheless, after analysing the expenditure of the various schemes administered by the ministry during 2021-22, it is difficult for the committee to accept that ongoing pandemic adversely affected the expenditure," the committee noted.

It said work on several schemes such as aid to voluntary organisations working for the scheduled tribes and development of particularly vulnerable groups could have continued as the ministry has already carried out a gap analysis of tribal villages in the health and education sectors and revamped their schemes to be implemented in a phased manner with defined target beneficiaries for each year under the Pradhan Mantri Aadi Adarsh Gram Yojana (PMAAGY) and the Pradhan Mantri Jan Jatiya Vikas Mission.

"The committee, in the past, has recommended various measurers to augment coordination between states, implementing agencies and the Ministry of Tribal Affairs," it said.

The panel said it has, time and again, observed that the ministry should avoid rush of expenditure at the fag end of a financial year and make "sincere efforts so that funds are timely spent and the targeted people get the benefits."

"The committee now expect that, with identified targets under the PMAAGY and other schemes, the trend of expenditure would improve and the ministry would also make efforts for timely receipt of untilisation certificates and approval of the proposals," the panel said.

The ministry should also strive to achieve "a better coordination" between states and the implementing agencies for "full utilisation" of funds allotted to them, it added.

The committee said it is "constrained to note that the projections of requisite funds made by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs are invariably reduced by the Ministry of Finance in the actual BE (budgetary estimate) allocation. These allocations are further reduced in the Revised Estimate stage."

In 2020-21, the allocation was reduced at the revised estimate stage from Rs 7,355.76 crore to Rs 5,472.50 while it was reduced from Rs 7,484.07 crore to Rs 6,126.46 crore in 2021-22, the the panel noted.

Further, the budgetary allocation for 2022-23 has been substantially reduced by the Ministry of Finance as the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, despite their projection of Rs 13,208.52 crore, was granted Rs 8,406.92 crore only, it said.

"The committee would like to believe that as various outcome targets in the five phases of the PMAAGY have been identified and the targets for scholarship schemes, EMRS etc. have also been fixed, the projections were realistic. Hence, they feel that there should not have been so much reduction at actual BE stage," it said.

"Still a gap of nearly Rs 5,000 crore in the same has happened. Quite obviously, the Ministry could not convince the Ministry of Finance on reducing this gap to a minimum," it added.

The committee hoped that the Tribal Affairs Ministry would utilise available funds "fully this year" to achieve the targets and, in future, prepare "a realistic budget", considering the experience and viability of revamped schemes.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)