Assam spends over 70 per cent of total budgetary provisions in FY18

The Assam Finance minister said that, a total of Rs 70,105.50 crore has been spent out of the total budgetary provisions Rs 99,453.08 crore during the financial year 2017-18 which is almost 70.49 per cent.

In the financial year 2016-17, the state has spent 69.15 per cent of the total budgetary provisions during the financial year.

Tabling the Expenditure (Provisional) Statement for 2017-18 in the ongoing budget session of Assam Legislative Assembly, Himanta Biswa Sarma said that, the state has achieved a milestone by spending over Rs 70,000 crore of the budget.

“Various departments under the state government have spent over 80 per cent of the total budget provisions in FY18.  In 2016-17, the state had spent Rs 57,406.81 crore of the budget provisions of Rs 83,017.21 crore and spent Rs 41,929.51 crore, which was 55.98 per cent of the total budgeted amount of Rs 74,903.76 crore in FY 16,” Himanta Biswa Sarma said.

“During the last two years, we have increased the state’s expenditure by almost 70 per cent compared to expenditure growth achieved in 2015-16. The expenditure growth in 2017-18, over a much larger base of 2016-17, has still been a highly creditable 22.12 per cent,” the Assam Finance minister said.

The Assam minister further said that, the state government is set target to spend 75 per cent of the total budget in the next financial year.

“Out of the total expenditure, Rs 57,288.30 crore was in the Revenue account and Rs 12,817.20 crore was in the Capital account. We have spent around Rs 20,000 crore of the states own revenue,” Sarma said.

Among the state government departments, 7 departments have utilised over 80 per cent of funds in the last fiscal.

The Pension & Public Grievances department is topped in the list with 103.37 per cent utilisation of budgeted provision funds followed by Education department with 95.45 per cent, Governor Secretariat at 92.70 per cent, Public Health Engineering department at 90.14 per cent, Handloom, Textile & Sericulture department at 86.13 per cent, Public Works at 84.53 per cent, Welfare for Minorities Development at 83.12 per cent.

Among the other departments, Home department has spent 78.79 per cent, Health and Family Welfare spent 77.09 per cent, Revenue and Disaster Management department spent 70.14 per cent of total funds.

On the other hand, 9 departments has spent below 50 per cent of the total budgetary provisions and among these departments, Guwahati development department has spent only 19.53 per cent, Water Resources (Flood Control) spent 19.81 per cent.

Among the least fund utilisation was by Welfare of Plain Tribes & Backward Classes at 28.95 per cent, Tea Tribes at 29.30 per cent, Industries & Commerce at 31.14 per cent, Urban Development at 34.44 per cent, Fishery at 42.27 per cent, Information & Technology at 47.18 per cent, Cultural Affairs at 49.04 per cent.

The minister further said that, the state finance department has received 13,542 FoC (Fixation of Ceiling) proposals during the FY18 and 13,161 were approved and 381 proposals were rejected as these proposals were received at the end of the financial year.

On the other hand, Himanta Biswa sarma had refuted all allegations made by the oppositions as not releasing funds to the departments.

The Assam minister said that, the state government will continue to strengthen by focusing on public finance reform that the state government launched in last couple of years and will continue generating additional state own resources.

“We will also continue to focus on bringing new developmental projects, schemes to the state through EAP funding to ensure that we are able to bring back the lost glory of the state,” Himanta Biswa Sarma said.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)