PM’s pet projects fund idle: House panel upset

A Parliamentary committee on the fund utilisation of the six flagship programmes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed its displeasure about the actual scenario and the trend of Central funds not being utilised.

Taking note of Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry’s excuse pertaining to poor spending the committee stated that the Government should get its act together and identify problematic areas leading to this slack implementation.

The six flagship programmes are AMRUT, HRIDAY, Smart Cities Mission, Swachchh Bharat, National Urban Livelihood Mission and  Prime Minister Awas Yojana. “The Committee is constrained to observe that the Ministry is giving the usual excuse of procedural delays in accounting for spent funds in case of the prestigious flagship schemes but the reality is that enough thought has not gone into the promises given to the people,” the committee said in its report.

“The reply has tried to project that the utilisation certificates actually due on March 31, 2018 was only for the funds released up to March 2016 which is not true and is in contravention of the General Finance Rules which allows a 12 months period up to March 31, 2017 not up to March 2018,” the report said.

As per latest data, the total cumulative grants released were Rs 46,663 crores up to March 7, 2018. The utilisation certificates (UC) were due for Rs 10,365-crore worth of projects in 2017-18. At the end of 2017-18, actual UCs for an amount of Rs 15,403 crore were received in the Ministry as against the due UCs for an amount of Rs 10,365 crores.

Under Swachchh Bharat Mission ,a total fund of Rs 7,540 crore was released. Of these, Rs 6,645 crore released under various projects. Similarly, Rs 10,504 crore was released against the total fund allocation of Rs 10,634 crore under Smart City Mission till March 31, 2018. The utilization certificate were due of Rs 1,469 crore. 

In the Prime Minister Awas Yojana, total Rs 17,900 crore has been allocated. Of these, Rs 16,982 crore have been released including grants in aid while the utilization certificate was issued of Rs 2,516 crore.

In the case of AMRUT, a huge share of Rs 13,427 crore has been allocated to scheme meant to provide for water supply, sewerage and drainage facilities to selected 500 cities. Ofthese, Rs 13,395 crore released.

In the case of HRIDAY, out of the Rs 700 crore, only 278 crore have been released while under the National Urban Livelihood Mission, against Rs 1,992 crore  allocation, Rs 1907 crore has been released.

 The committee advised for addressing the problematic area on war footing including the brittle financial health of most the municipal bodies in undertaking Centre’s flagship schemes.