More money for UPA pet projects

Despite poor financial performance of several flagship schemes, the UPA has gone ahead with higher allocation for them in the next fiscal, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Feb 25, 2008, 24:08:59 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Despite poor financial performance of several flagship schemes, the UPA has gone ahead with higher allocation for them in the next fiscal.

The government plans to allocate Rs 1,16,170 crore, almost half of the gross budgetary support of Rs 2,44,000 crore, to these 21 flagship programmes against the Rs 74,349 crore allocated in the current financial year. This shows the UPA's focus is on the social sector before the general elections in 2009, a government official said.

The 2008-09 budget will be the last budget of the UPA government before the next general elections. In place of the 2009-10 budget, the government will present a vote on account. With its hands tied for the next budget, the government plans to increase allocation for crucial flagship programmes during the monsoon session of Parliament, for which a special provision was being made, officials said. However, till January 21, government ministries were able to spend only Rs 46,139 crore of the funds allocated for these schemes. This may well result in a money-spending spree as all funds have to be utilised before March 31, end of the current financial year.

The Planning Commission's performance report indicates the worst performing scheme is the Backward Regions Grant Fund administered by the Panchayati Raj Ministry. Of the allocated Rs 5,000 crores, the ministry was able to utilise only Rs 1,074 crore till January.

The National Horticulture Mission could spend only Rs 581 crore of the Rs 1,000 crore it was allocated. The rural water supply scheme and rural sanitation programme had less than 50 per cent fund utilization rate.

However, the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, the Midday Meal scheme and the accelerated irrigation programme have done well with over 80 per cent utilisation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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