Around 40% more projects completed during 2020-21 as compared to 2018-19 in J&K UT

Current budget focuses on maximum governance, minimum Govt
*Better financial planning, mgmt leaving positive impact

Mohinder Verma

JAMMU, Aug 1: Around 40% more projects were completed during 2020-21 financial year as compared to 2018-19 under UT Sector due to host of reforms introduced in the recent years aimed at ensuring better financial planning and management. Moreover, during the current financial year the Government is planning to break the record of completion of works in the light of the fact that the size of J&K Budget for 2021-22 has been approved at more than Rs one lakh crore.
As per the document of the Finance Department, improvement in the financial planning and management has left positive impact on the completion of works especially of UT Sector and this can be gauged from the fact that during 2018-19 a total of 6090 works were completed and this figure increased to 6933 during 2019-20 financial year.
However, during 2020-21 financial year a total of 9514 works/projects were completed, which is an increase of around 40% as compared to the number of works completed during 2018-19 financial year. “This indicates a paradigm shift in the understanding of executing agencies for early and time bound completion of works/projects in the newly evolved financial environment”, the Government said.
Rural Development Department has topped the list by completing 3971 works while as Housing and Urban Development Department and Public Works Department are at number two and three by completing 2122 and 1108 projects respectively. The works completed by Jal Shakti, Tribal Affairs, Tourism, School Education, Planning Development and Monitoring Department and Forest Department were in the range of 200 to 350 each.
Similarly, maximum number of projects were completed under UT Sector (5537) followed by Centrally Sponsored Schemes (3793), PMDP (117) and Loan Schemes (67). As far as time duration within which these 9514 projects were completed is concerned, the data reveals that 6167 (65%) were completed within one year, 2037 (21%) within two years and 586 (6%) within three years.
The key feature is that 724 projects were completed during 2020-21 which has completion period ranging from four years to 10 years, the Government said, adding “the focus of Finance Department is to complete all the works within two years and big projects within three years”.
As far as district wise completion of works under UT Sector is concerned, Srinagar has topped with completion of 1388 works followed by Jammu with 990 works and Rajouri with 708 works. The other districts which have completed more than 500 works are Kupwara (674) and Anantnag (595).
According to the document of the Finance Department, the J&K UT Budget 2021-22 focuses on good governance aimed at maximum governance and minimum Government, socio-economic development of the people, development of infrastructure across Jammu and Kashmir and generation of employment.
It is pertinent to mention here that the size of the J&K Budget for 2021-22 crosses Rs 1 lakh crore of which developmental expenditure is of the order of Rs 39817 crore which shows 33% increase over Revised Estimates 2020-21. The capital budget comprises mainly of UT/District Sector, PMDP, Centrally Sponsored Schemes, loans etc.
The capital budget is further segregated into four broad sectors of the economy. The Administrative Sector has the allocation of Rs 2067 crore of which 67% is expected to be spent on Home Department. For Social Sector, the capital budget is approved at Rs 4920 crore with 30% allocation exclusively for Health and Medical Education Sector.
Similarly, allocation under Economic Sector is of the order of Rs 8467 crore of which 57% and 19% has been allocated for Rural Development and Agriculture Production respectively. Maximum capital allocation—Rs 24363 crore has been earmarked for Infrastructure Sectors with Rs 6346 crore for Public Health Engineering, Rs 4098 crore for Public Works and Rs 2728 crore for Power Development.
“The UT of J&K has achieved unprecedented level of transparency in financial management by way of introduction of host of reforms/initiatives in the recent years”, the Government said, adding “activity-wise online release of funds through Budget Estimation, Allocation and Monitoring System (BEAMS) whereby the details of projects and related expenses are put in public domain, making administrative and technical approvals, e-tendering, geo-tagged photographs mandatory for payments, online billing, streamlining GST, e-stamping, digital payments, implementation of GeM and 100% physical verification are some recent interventions”.