Thiruvananthapuram: Like in previous fiscals, political compulsions have upstaged fiscal common sense. Despite poor plan fund utilisation, the state cabinet on Wednesday approved a higher plan outlay for 2017-18. From Rs 24,000 crore this fiscal, it has been raised to Rs 26,500 crore for 2017-18, a 10.4 percent increase.
With just a month and a half to go for the end of the fiscal, plan fund utilisation for 2016-17 is a paltry 37 percent. In figures, it means only Rs 8855.8 crore of the total outlay of Rs 24,000 has been utilised. However, considering the 20 percent increase in plan outlay effected by the former UDF for 2016-17, this increase looks relatively moderate. If central transfers are also included, the gross plan.
Outlay for 2017-18 will be Rs 34,538.95 crore, an increase of 13.12 percent over the ongoing fiscal. The state also expects central transfers to increase to Rs 8038.95 crore in 2017-18 from Rs 6534.17 crore this fiscal. It has also been decided to allocate 23.5 percent (Rs 6227.5 crore) of the plan outlay for local self government institutions. In the ongoing fiscal, LSGI's were allotted Rs 5500 crore, which was 22.9 percent of the plan outlay.
Allocations that are more than proportionate to their population have been set apart for scheduled tribes and castes for the next fiscal. “Though they form only 1.45 percent of the state's population, the tribal sub-plan has been allocated 2.83 percent (Rs 751.08 crore) of the total plan outlay,” an official statement here said. For the SC population, which forms 9.1 percent of the population, 9.81 percent of the outlay (Rs Rs 2599.61 crore) has been allocated.
