GOING by the funds utilised during the first nine month under various flagship schemes initiated by the Indian government, it is clear it’s the laudable objectives will not be achieved. This reflects poorly on the performance of the union government. Same is the fate of these schemes at the level of various states.

There is a big effort in planning, designing and then allocating budget in these schemes which are supposed to uplift the lots of the deprived and the poor. And, no one really is sure how much money spent has actually benefitted the targeted people. There is a great deal of corruption as well know .
According to official data, more than a third of funds allocated to eight of the 15 flagship schemes have remained unspent at the end of the first three quarters, December 2009. This means that not only will the respective administrative ministries have to work hard to justify their demands for the next fiscal year. The finance ministry may also not be so generous this time round.

The quantum of funds a ministry can spend in the last quarter is restricted at 33 per cent of the total allocation for the full year. Given the trend of expenditure in the first three quarters, it appears that large amount of funds may remain unspent under some of the major flagship schemes such as the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, Accelerated Irrigation Benefits Programme and the Indira Awaas Yojana.

These three schemes top the list in terms of poor utilisation of budget funds for 2009-2010. While JNNURM spent only 33.33 per cent of the Rs 11,553 crore assigned to it for the full year till December 2009, AIBP utilised only 43.4 per cent of Rs 9,700 crore allocated for it. IAY managed to spend a little more than half of Rs 8,800 crore earmarked for it.

out of the total allocation of Rs1, 47,324.86crore for the15 flagship schemes for the entire fiscal, only Rs 97,017.5 crore had been spent by the end of the first three quarters. This amounts to utilisation of 65.8 per cent funds leaving little less than 35 per cent unspent.

The government had decided to cap the expenditure of ministries to one third of their total allocation in the fourth quarter as it was found that there would be a spending rush in the last quarter. This could entail hasty expenditure as well as piling up of sanction requests at the end of the year.

Schemes that have spent over 80 per cent of the funds allocated as per Budget Estimates of 2009-10 are the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Intergrated Child Development Scheme, Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana and the National Social Assistance Programme.

Interestingly several ministries have already placed demands for significantly higher budgetary allocation for the next fiscal with the Planning Commission. Some like the heavy industries, telecom, housing and urban poverty alleviation and civil aviation ministries have sought over 300 per cent increase in their allocation for 2010-11.

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