Finance Minister orders to submit expenditure plan within a week

Finance Minister Janardan Sharma today asked the ministries to submit an expenditure plan within a week to expedite the capital expenditure.

The government has failed to boost the capital expenditure putting pressure on Finance Ministry as it has aimed to increase the capital expenditure to 90 per cent – in the current fiscal year 2021-22 – in its mid-term budgetary review.

“It seems the target of  mid-term budgetary review is not going to be met as according to the progress report as of today,” he said, asking the secretaries of the top 10 ministries, which has high capital budget allocation.

Speaking at a programme organised at the Finance Ministry to review the budgets of 10 ministries with high capital budget allocation till March 8, the finance minister also directed to implement the budget according to the mid-term review.

Pledging that the Finance Ministry will extend all possible assistance to increase the capital expenditure to 90 per cent, the minister said that the ministries, which have a large capital budget, have spent less, whereas the ministries with less capital budget have spent more. “It is a matter of concern that the progress of the ministries with high capital expenditure is not satisfactory, whereas the ministries with low capital expenditure allocations have seen a very high percentage of progress.

“It is still more serious concern that the ministries that are unable to spend the allocated capital budget are asking for more budget,” said finance secretary Madhu Kumar Marasini, on the occasion.

The ministries, however, claimed that they could spend up to 85 per cent of the capital budget, though, according to the Office of the Comptroller General, the government has not been able to spend 20 per cent of the capital budget till date.