The State government has spent much less than the allocated funds on the social sector, a study on the State budget by Jaganachya Hakkache Andolan has found.
The study found that only 40% of the allocated funding from the budget had been spent till February 14, even though 90% of the budgetary period was over. It also found that despite agrarian crises, only 51% of the budgetary allocations for agriculture and allied services had been spent by the State.
‘A deliberate act’
The JHA alleged that “massive and deliberate underspending” led to denial of social rights and failure in implemention of key schemes. The study said that there was “continued vacancies and underresourcing” in public health and education sectors. It also found that 93% of funds for the Public Distribution System and almost the entire allocation for the Annapurna Scheme had not yet been spent. The study found that only 58.5% of the allotted funds for the Integrated Child Development Schemes had been spent as of January 2018.
In the education sector, the State had not spent 58% of the Central share for Sarva Shikshan Abhiyan and 68% of funds for the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan programmes.
Funds unused
The study found that over ₹2,755 crore of development funds for the welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled tribes were not used. About ₹1,000 crore from the Tribal Sub Plan and ₹500 crore from the Schedule Castes Sub Plan had not been officially diverted for the farm loan waivers in 2017-18. This was despite the State’s accumulated uncollected taxes of ₹109,000 crore, which gave it a ranking of 22 in revenue collections and 21 in development expenditure.
JHA or Right to Live campaign, is a Maharashtra-wide network of organisations, people’s movements and trade unions. The report was compiled by Amit Narkar from National Center for Advocacy Studies, Ravi Duggal of International Budget Partnerships, Subhash Amin of Anganwadi Workers Union and Trupti Joshi and Vinod Shende from Sathi- CEHAT, Bilal Khan from Ghar Bachao, Ghar Bano Andolan, and Ulka Mahaja from Anna Adhikar Andolan.
