Uttar Pradesh government asks its departments to follow austerity measures

The Uttar Pradesh government directive concerns the issuing of financial sanctions for amount earmarked in supplementary budget for 2022-23 that was passed by the state legislature on December 6.

The Uttar Pradesh government has asked its departments to “keep in view” the directives for adopting austerity measures while issuing financial sanctions for use of the supplementary budget for 2022-23.

The Yogi Adityanath government presented the supplementary budget on December 5 and it was passed the next day. (FILE PHOTO)

The state legislature passed the supplementary budget on the concluding day of the winter session on December 6.

“The proposals for issuing financial sanctions should be issued keeping in view the directives of the state finance department given from time to time to ensure compliance with the state government’s orders for adopting austerity measures,” said additional chief secretary, finance, Prashant Trivedi in an order sent to all the additional chief secretaries, principal secretaries and secretaries on December 14.

The order was about issuing of financial sanctions of supplementary demands for grants.

The state government had got supplementary budget of ₹33,769.55 crore for 2022-23 passed in the state legislature. The state government had presented the annual budget of ₹6.15 lakh crore earlier. With the supplementary grants, the size of the state budget for 2022-23 has gone up to ₹6.50 lakh crore.

The state government has also cautioned the departments against issuing sanctions for high amounts that may not be used in the present financial year (by March 31, 2023.).

“The financial sanctions should be issued to the extent of actual expenditure that can be made on schemes/projects in the remaining period of 2022-23 (up to March 31, 2023),” Trivedi said.

He further said the state government, vide an order dated March 14, 2018, had scrapped the system of drawing the budgeted amount from the consolidated fund and keeping the same in PLA (a type of account).

He said the departments should, therefore, not make any proposal to draw the amount, earmarked in the supplementary budget, and keep the same in PLA.

The departments were able to spend only 33.54% of the annual budget of ₹6.15 lakh crore in first six months of 2022-23. The third quarter of 2022-23 will end on December 31. The state government is issuing financial sanctions for the amount earmarked in the supplementary budget when only the last quarter of the financial year remains to make use of the budget.

It remains to be seen whether the departments will be able to use the annual budget in the remainder of 2022-23.

“The supplementary budget for 2022-2023 has been passed to allocate funds largely for new schemes. There are hardly three months left in this financial year to spend the amount. The state government has obviously emphasised on austerity to ensure productive use of resources,” said Professor Yashvir Tyagi, former head of department of economics, Lucknow University.