Uttar Pradesh government tells departments to follow austerity measures
In new guidelines, the Uttar Pradesh government has also asked its departments to work out the phasing of possible expenditure on a monthly basis
The Uttar Pradesh government has asked all its departments to follow austerity measures and work out the phasing of possible expenditure on a monthly basis.
The departments will begin issuing financial sanctions for 2023-24 in April.
The government has also asked all the departments to ensure that financial sanctions for over 30% and 15% of the budget are not issued in the last quarter and the last month, respectively, in 2023-24.
The state government has issued new guidelines apparently to ensure that a large chunk of budgetary sanction is not issued in the last quarter or the last month of the next financial year (2023-24).
“The state finance department’s guidelines about expenditure management and austerity measures issued from time to time should specially be followed,” said additional chief secretary, finance, Prashant Trivedi in an order dated March 17.
“All the administrative departments should carry out the phasing of expenditure in accordance with the nature of work. As far as possible, the phasing of expenditure should be equal for every month and financial sanctions for more than 30% of budget provisions should not be issued in the last quarter and the financial sanctions for more than 15% of budget provisions should not be done in last month of the financial year,” said Trivedi.
The successive state governments have been issuing financial sanctions for a large chunk of the budget provisions in the last quarter or the last month of the year. The delay in issuing financial sanctions may lead to lapse of funds. Various departments of the state government were able to use less than 50% of the budget provisions in first three quarters of 2022-23 (up to December 31, 2022). The state government has got an annual budget of ₹6.90 lakh crore ( ₹6,90,242.43 crore) approved for 2023-24. The state government had issued similar directives for using the supplementary budget (2022-23) as well on December 14, 2022.
Besides telling the officers to keep the expenditure within the authorised limits, Trivedi has also asked them to ensure that the funds are withdrawn from treasuries when immediately needed. The officers have been reminded that the proposals of projects involving expenditure of over ₹200 crore or involve higher specifications would need approval of the state cabinet. The financial sanctions for proposals for buying new vehicles will have to be issued only with the consent of the state finance department. The financial sanctions for projects involving expenditure of ₹4 crore or more should be issued in six bi-monthly instalments. For projects involving expenditure from ₹50 lakh to ₹4 crore, they should be issued in four quarterly instalments. The financial sanctions for projects involving expenditure up to ₹50 lakh should be issued in two instalments.
