2024-07-07 12:28:12
Bhopal: Big questions have been raised on the budget management of the Madhya Pradesh government. The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has found the budgetary management of the state government to be poor and has also raised many serious questions on it. CAG has warned the government to avoid borrowing capital receipts to meet revenue expenditure. At the same time, it has also suggested to increase own revenue.
In the CAG report presented in the Assembly, questions have been raised from budget making to expenditure monitoring and use from the financial year 2018-19 to 2022-23. CAG has expressed serious objection and advised that the budget balance is not correct due to unrealistic proposals, improper functioning of expenditure monitoring mechanism and improper implementation of schemes.
what does the CAG report say
The report says that due to poor management, many departments are not able to spend. At the same time, many departments do not even have the budget to work. According to the CAG report, in the financial year 2022-23, out of the budget of three lakh 21 thousand crores, Rs 50 thousand 543 crores (15.71 percent) were saved. In this, Rs 22 thousand 984 crores were returned to the government by the departments on the last day of the financial year, but the remaining amount lapsed due to not being submitted.
CAG pointed out the flaws here
A lump sum amount of Rs 6,744 crore was provisioned in the Disaster Relief, Farmers Welfare and Agricultural Development Department, Cooperation, Rural Development, Tribal Affairs and Scheduled Caste Welfare Department. Out of which 64 percent amount could not be used. The report also said that this situation has arisen due to delay in release of funds from the Center and delay in work allotted by the agencies. A budget provision of Rs 6,117 crore was made in 18 new schemes with a budget provision of more than Rs 50 crore started in the year 2022-23, out of which Rs 3,498 crore could not be spent.
At the same time, a provision of Rs 10,344 crore was made for 30 non-operational schemes between the year 2018-19 and the financial year 2022-23. This money could not be used either. Out of the budget allocated for farmer welfare and agricultural development from the agriculture budget, 42 percent was not spent in the financial year 2018-19, 33 percent in 2019-20, 3.7 percent in 2021-22 and 14 percent in 2023-24.
Advice regarding borrowing
CAG has advised that before taking new loans, the state government should consider need based borrowing and use the existing cash balance. Borrowing to meet revenue expenditure should be avoided. At the same time, the government should increase its own revenue. The process of preparing the budget should be such that the difference between budget estimates and actuals can be reduced.