The rate of expenditure on education and health to aggregate expenditure of the State during 2019-20 was below its neighbouring States and also below general category States/national average, according to the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India report.
While Karnataka’s actual rate of expenditure to aggregate expenditure on education and health during 2019-20 was 4.28% against the general category States’ expenditure of 5.21%, the expenditure of Kerala was 6.59%, Tamil Nadu 5.13%, Andhra Pradesh 4.86%, Telangana 5.14%, Maharashtra 4.34%, and Madhya Pradesh 4.7%.
Quality of expenditure
“The higher the ratio of these components (health and education) to total expenditure, the quality of expenditure is considered to be better,” the report said.
Despite the State resorting to huge market borrowings of ₹48,499 crore in 2019-20, the increase in capital expenditure on various developmental works over the previous year (2018-19) was just 1% and the share of capital expenditure to total expenditure was 19%, the report said.
The Comptroller and Auditor General report, on State Finance ending March 2020, said that there has been cost and time overrun and the State government has to bear extra burden in terms of servicing of debt and interest liabilities on the borrowings incurred towards implementation of projects.
Recovery of loans
The report tabled in the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday said that the recovery of loans advanced by the State government to various institutions was meagre and was less than 1% of the opening balance of the loans outstanding during 2019-20.
A sum of ₹4,069 crore was advanced to various institutions in the form of loans during 2019-20 and the recovery of loan was ₹203 crore during the year.
Gender budget
Though the State Budget enhanced its allocation towards gender budgeting every year, the gender budget process lacked overall analysis, gender disaggregated data and monitoring mechanism, the Comptroller and Auditor General report said.
