The central government is said to be upset with dismal performance of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) government regarding the utilisation of allocated funds for various government schemes. According to sources in state government, only about 31% of the funds were spent from Rs 7300 cr given as part of the current year’s plan till December 2012.
An irked central government has reportedly asked the State Planning Department to provide all the figures about different schemes and apprise them about the money spent so far.
The focus on the poor spending by J&K Government has come at a time when Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather sought Rs 68,000 cr plan assistance from the Centre, asserting that the state was facing an additional set of problems.
Sources said that when the state government reviewed midterm plan, they found that most of the government agencies have failed to achieve targets of utilising the plan funds in the first seven months of current financial year. “By October end 2012 only 23% of Rs 7,300 cr was utilised by different agencies”, said the sources. In Rural Development Schemes, the J&K government pressed for funds after conducting Panchayat elections. But the utilisation of funds in this sector is very poor. “Out of Rs 20124.33 cr allotted to J&K for special area programmes only Rs 550 cr have been spent so far,” said sources.
In agriculture and allied sectors the utilisation of funds is not so healthy. Against Rs 250.72 cr for the current year only Rs 40 cr have been utilised by different departments in this sector.
With respect to the much talked about tourism schemes, J&K is far from the targets set by the central government.