Farm spending meagre in Telangana

Only `156 crore spent out of `1,882 crORE allocated

Hyderabad: The performance of the State Government seems to have fallen short of expectations in terms of spending the funds earmarked during the budget for various departments. According to information received under the Right to Information Act by Bachao Telangana Mission leader Nagam Janardhan Reddy, the expenditure percentage with regard to agriculture and cooperation department has been only 8.32 percent.

While the budget estimate for this department has been Rs 1,882.05 crore from April 1 to September 30, the expenditure during this period was only Rs 156.65 crore. This assumes importance in the wake of reports of continuing suicides by the farmers. On Monday, the High Court directed Telangana government to form 'State Farmers Commission' to take up farmers’ welfare and resolve their issues.

Hearing a Public Interest Litigation filed on farmers' suicides, the Division Bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Dilip B Bhosale and Justice S V Bhatt said when there are commissions for so many sections why shouldn’t there be one for farmers. Falling short of expectations is not restricted to agriculture alone. The amount spent in case of Food and Civil Supplies department was just Rs 10 crore out of Rs 52.54 crore allocated.

Even in the Irrigation and Command Area Development, which forms the high-priority department, the expenditure during the first six months was only Rs 2,990.05 crore as against allocation of Rs 8,500 crore. Officials attributed the low utilisation of funds to the the process of re-engineering the projects. The government had decided to allocate Rs 25,000 crore every year and has also issued orders on Monday that the irrigation department will not have to depend on finance department to spend the money.

The Telangana State claims to be the only state which is spending the highest amount on welfare sector. But the figures indicate that the government which had allocated Rs 1,100 crore for minority welfare had spent only Rs 220 crore. With regard to Scheduled Castes development, it had allocated Rs 4,217.65 crore but spent only Rs 694.45 crore.

Similarly, it spent only Rs 293.53 crore for tribal welfare as against budget estimate of Rs 1,728.22 crore. Even in case of women, children, disabled and senior welfare, the expenditure during the first six months was just 27 percent of the amount allocated. While Rs 1,513 crore was the budget estimate, only Rs 411 crore was spent.

However, the departments where the expenditure was good are Energy Department where 41.54 percent of the allocated amount has been spent. Similarly, 71.23 percent was spent in case of Secondary Education. It now remains to be seen how the government would transform the process of budget making and bring in more transparency and efficiency in implementing the promises it makes.

It may be mentioned here that at the recent cabinet meeting, Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao promised to bring radical changes in budget making and almost delink the finance ministry from key departments and give them power to directly draw the funds for various projects.