Mobilising funds a challenge for Yogi govt in Lok Sabha poll year

A major challenge of mobilising additional funds for major development works, and managing finances vis-à-vis the rising expenditure, stares the Yogi Adityanath government in the face ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Although the state government got the largest supplementary budget, of ₹34833.24 crore, for 2018-2019 passed in the state legislature last month despite having the largest annual budget of ₹4,28,384.53 crore this year, it will have to work out ways to provide funds for the major projects incorporated therein to expedite the pace of development in the poll year.

A close scrutiny of the state’s financial situation points towards the strained resources, with proposals of levying any new taxes not under consideration as of now.

The state government had got a budget of ₹3.85 lakh crore approved from the state legislature for 2017-2018 but it was able to fund only ₹3.05 lakh crore of the budget (about 79.2 per cent of the budget). This ( ₹3.05 lakh crore) included revenue expenditure of ₹2.66 lakh crore, about 86.6 per cent of the budgetary estimates.

Its capital expenditure was merely 50 per cent of the estimates with spending coming down to ₹39,000 crore against the budgetary estimates of ₹78,000 crore.

A senior officer admitted that funding the budget will remain a major challenge as work on many items incorporated in the supplementary budget may have to be started soon and carried out expeditiously. These include development of defence corridor, Jewar airport, clearing dues of cane growers, crop loan waiver scheme and projects in the name of former prime minister late Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

“Yes, providing funds for big projects will be a major challenge. We have no proposal under consideration to hike any taxes or duties etc. We hope to have considerable savings from the annual budget for the current financial year. The state government had provided budgetary support to certain items that may not be pushed further now. We will cut wasteful expenditure and provide funds for all the major development projects,” said the officer.

The state government has already notified the supplementary demands of grant and the departments to issue sanctions for the items incorporated in the supplementary budget in consultation with the state finance department.

A government order issued by additional chief secretary, finance, Sanjiv Mittal on September 1, 2018 has instructed departments to issue sanctions only for the amount that may be used in remaining months of 2018-2019. The GO also informed the departments that the system of withdrawing sanctioned amounts from consolidated fund and reserving them for spending at a later date has been done away with and so no such proposals should be made.