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TS utilisation of SSA funds less than 50% in 5 years: K Laxman
Dr K Laxman
- State blames Centre but fails to utilise funds
- Since 2019-20 TS SSA expenditure less than 50%
Hyderabad: The Telangana government is at loggerheads with the Centre for not coming forward to extend financial assistance to the State on several counts. However, Rajya Sabha member of the Public Accounts CommitteeDr K Laxman on Thursday found fault with it for not utilising funds released by the Centre but blaming the Centre.
For the past five years, the State government could utilise only less than about 55 per cent of the funds released by the Centre under the Samagra Siksha Abhiyan (SSA). This was revealed by the Union Minister of State for Education Annapurna Devi in reply to a query raised in the Rajya Sabha, he added.
The minister said the SSA, an integrated scheme for school education, envisages he 'school' as a continuum from pre-school, primary, upper primary, secondary to senior secondary levels and subsumes the erstwhile Centrally-sponsored schemes of SSA, Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and Teacher Education (TE).
Funds under the Centrally-sponsored scheme (CSS) under SSA were based on the Centre and State sharing in its implementation.
As per the scheme guidelines, the annual plans were prepared by respective States and Union Territories. It is based on each State considering their requirements and priority. The same reflects in the Annual Work Plan and Budget (AWP&W) proposals. The AWP&W were approved and estimated by a Project Approval Board (PAB) in the school education wing of the Union Ministry of Education (UoME). However, this was done "in consultation with the respective States and UTs, as per the programmatic and financial norms of the scheme, and physical and financial progress of the State for the interventions approved earlier."
The funds are released based on the submission of audited accounts, utilisation certificates, physical and financial progress and other documents as prescribed under the financial management & procurement (FMP) manual of Samagra Shiksha.
Accordingly, the State has been sanctioned around Rs 12,000 crore since the financial year 2018-19 till date. However, including the State share to SSA, Telangana expenditure stood at only Rs 5,000 crore, making the total expenditure for the last five years under SSA less than 50 per cent.
