Constitutional violation: Telangana government splurges hugely sans legislative nod

Saifabad: Is the Telangana State government making excess expenditure over and above the budgetary allocations approved by the State Legislature?

The answer to this is 'Yes,' says the Comptroller and Auditor General's (CAGs) report tabled on the last date of the State Assembly session here on Friday.

It said that an excess expenditure to the tune of Rs 29,133.69 crore was incurred in seven grants and two appropriations.

"A total expenditure of Rs 3,507.17 crore was incurred at sub-head level without any budget provision in 34 cases." The persistent excess expenditure occurred in Fiscal Administration, Planning, Surveys and Statistics and Home Administration Grants.

The public watchdog said that the excess expenditure without the legislative approval was in violation of Article 204 of the Constitution which provides that no money shall be withdrawn from the Consolidated Fund except under appropriation by Law by the StateLegislature.

Further, it also vitiates the system of budgetary and financial control and encourages financial indiscipline management of public resources.Against this backdrop, it has asked the State Finance Department to ensure that no expenditure is incurred without budget provision or over what has been passed by the Legislature.

For this, it suggested to the Telangana government analyse the reasons for persistent excess expenditure. Also, under Article 205, the State government needed to get excess expenditure over a grant/appropriation regularised by the State Legislature.

However, the State government did not get the excess expenditure of Rs 55,517.30 crore, over and abovethe allocation in years 2014-15 to 2017-18, regularised.The CAG asked the State government to get all cases of excess expenditure to get regularised on priority. It suggested putting in place a mechanism to check excess expenditure which had not got the vote of the State legislature.

Similarly, under the Fiscal Reform Path of the State government, it said that following the recommendations of the 12th Finance Commission, the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act, 2015 was enacted in the combined state, which was amended in 2016. Under the said Act, the State government has to disclose and statements under Section 10 of the FRBM Act, 2005 and Rule 6 of Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Rules, 2006. However, the State government did not make four out of ten disclosures required to be made.