Heads of various departments met Chief Secretary Chetan B. Sanghi on Monday and discussed the plan expenditure.
The various departments are on their way to meet the revised estimate of spending for the year 2013-14. The target this year is to spend 99 per cent of revised estimate by the end of March. The decision was taken at the plan review meeting held here recently.
At the end of February, the departments together have spent a total of Rs. 1,450 crore and it is expected that the current expenditure in the past few days is close to Rs. 1500 crore, sources said.
Puducherry’s total plan outlay for the year 2013-14 was fixed at Rs. 2,000 crore, and in December last year, the revised estimate was fixed at Rs. 1,800 crore. It is expected that the expenditure by the end of March will be at Rs. 1,850 crore.
Almost all the departments have managed an expenditure of around 75 per cent, and the Public Works Department has currently spent close to 90 per cent of its plan budget, the source said.
When compared to last year, when the spending was less than 50 per cent of the plan outlay, in the current fiscal the government is optimistic that it will achieve around 99 per cent of the plan outlay by the end of March.
If the government achieves the revised spending estimate, it will be able to increase its budget for the next fiscal year by 10 to 15 per cent. Because of the poor expenditure in 2012-13, the government had been forced to reduce their budget earlier, the source said.
