Parliamentary panel asks environment ministry to prevent underutilisation of pollution control funds
The panel headed by Congress leader Anand Sharma tabled its 308th report in Rajya Sabha on Thursday
A parliamentary panel headed by Congress leader Anand Sharma took serious exception to under utilisation of funds meant for pollution control and asked the environment ministry to take corrective measures.
The committee on science and technology and environment and forests in its 308th report tabled in Rajya Sabha on Thursday said, “....high level of pollution across the county has been engaging the attention of all concerned and abating pollution has become one of the gravest challenges today.”
“In such a scenario, if funds earmarked for assistance of abatement of pollution remain partially utilised, that speaks volumes about the sincerity and the capabilities of the concerned agencies,” the report added.
In an earlier report it had chastised the ministry over the same issue.
The parliamentary panel had found that fund utilisation by the ministry dropped to 70.85 % in 2016-17 even as the spiralling pollution across the country evoked concerns. The utilisation used to be between 90-97% during 2012-16, it pointed out.
The ministry in its action-taken report had earlier cited non-receipt of competitive proposals meeting criteria for funding, duplication of schemes in other ministries and funding being “not attractive” to investors, as reasons for underutilisation of funds.
The ministry further noted that it had reviewed and revamped schemes to address the problem of underutilisation of funds. In particular it cited that assistance for abatement of pollution, CETP and Clean Technology (CT) were merged into a new proposed scheme of pollution abatement.
The ministry said that the proposed scheme also lays emphasis on awareness, capacity building activities, demonstration projects for upcoming technologies, result oriented and time bound R&D studies for control and abatement of pollution.
Taking into account the ministry’s response to its recommendations the panel concluded that “the ministry should also focus on initiating necessary steps to avoid underutilisation of funds.”
(with agency inputs)