Telangana follows AP in spending; initiatives planned did not materialise
Hyderabad: The new state of Telangana is no different from united Andhra Pradesh. Like every year in the erstwhile state, Telangana too spent less than it had promised to people in the last fiscal. Non-reactive, inadequate and inefficient administration in dealing with fiscal and budgetary management affairs were the main complaints against the state government in the Comptroller and Audit General’s report for 2014-15 that was tabled on Wednesday in the state legislature.
Admitting that Telangana had less than 10 months to function in that particular financial year, the CAG report however said that initiatives planned by the new government did not materialise due to inept handling of finances. Every year the CAG finds lapses in government departments and subsequently the Public Accounts Committee, comprising legislators, meet and occasionally warn a few departments, nothing else.
CAG is mandated under the Constitution to monitor the state government’s expenditure on various schemes and policies. It submits its annual report backed by facts and figures, and findings from surprise checks. It also had a statutory obligation of submitting a detailed report to the Legislature for follow-up on the matters and expects various government departments to be cautious in their approach on spending the funds from public exchequer, besides taking corrective measures to avoid repeats of their inefficiencies.
“Several policy initiatives taken by the government were either unfulfilled or partially executed primarily due to non-approval of scheme guidelines and modalities and non commencement of works for want of administrative sanctions,” CAG remarked about the Telangana government. It highlighted the lopsided announcements of funds to various flagship programmes like Mission Bhagiratha, two-bedroom housing and others and castigated the government for not spending the amounts as voted by the Assembly. It even took a serious view of surrendering large amounts, running into several hundred crores, to maintain the fiscal balance. A glaring example was noticed by CAG that though the Chief Minister had announced Rs 200 crore for development of the Yadadri temple shrine, only Rs 100 crore was released on the last day i.e. March 31 2015, the closing day of financial accounts.
Read: Budget by Telangana is unrealistic: CAG
Similar was in the case of Mission Bhagiratha. Rs 2,000 crore was announced in the budget but only Rs 105 crore was released in December 2014, out of which only Rs 27 crore was spent, that too towards making advances.
The Telangana state government had presented a huge budget of Rs 1 lakh crore but could spend only 60 per cent of the funds due to “unrealistic assumptions and weaknesses in expenditure, monitoring and control,” the report stated.
Read: Telangana Genco paid Rs 170-crore more
Delay in submission of A/Cs: CAG
The CAG found delays in submission of annual accounts by several autonomous bodies/authorities. Utilisation certificates were furnished without actual utilisation or not furnished at all for large amounts both by the state government and the implementating agencies, it stated. Detailed contingent bills were not submitted thus violating prescribed rules and regulations which are indicative of lack of internal controls.
The CAG noticed non-reconciliation of 68 per cent of total expenditure and 69 per cent of total receipts. This indicated disregard for codal provisions and financial rules, which leads to the risk of non-detection of leakages in revenue and irregularities in expenditure. It found 47,198 vouchers in support of payments made for an amount of Rs 1,804.79 crore from the Pay and Accounts Office of treasuries were not received by AG.
