Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, July 6: The State Government is in for major financial crisis in the upcoming days due to massive delay in approval of its annual plan for current financial year of 2014-15 with own resources of the State exhausting, leading to suffering of developmental works, cash crunch in treasuries and delay in holding of District Development Board (DDB) meetings, which had to approval plan of the districts.
With sword of Model Code of Conduct looming large in next three months, the Government feels that development season of the current year could suffer very badly especially in the elections year when Jammu and Kashmir is scheduled to go to Assembly polls in the months of November-December.
Official sources told the Excelsior that notwithstanding the decision of the Planning and Development Department authorizing the districts for 50 per cent expenditure of plan in both plan and non-plan categories till the district plan was approved in the DDB meetings, the delay in release of the plan, PMRP amount and funds under the Centrally Sponsored Schemes was likely to lead to financial crunch in the State, which could badly affect the development works apart from leading to crisis in the treasuries.
“The Government was trying to run the treasuries with the available resources but they (the resources) would exhaust in next few days until annual plan of the State was approved by then, which appeared distinct possibility,” they said.
According to sources, the Centre Government was likely to take up approval of annual plans and Centrally Sponsored Schemes of various States only after annual budget of the country is approved by the Parliament on or before July 31. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley would present the budget in Lok Sabha on July 10 and it had to secure approval of the Parliament before July 31 as previous UPA-II Government had taken vote-on-account for three months from April 1 to July 31.
As budget session of the Parliament is scheduled to last till August 8, unless extended, the Government of India would take up annual plan of the States after that. The Centre was yet to take a decision on whether to set up the Planning Commission for plan approval or give the responsibility to the Finance Minister by abolishing the Planning Commission.
Sources said delay in approval of the annual plan has also resulted in delay in holding of the DDB meetings for current financial year, which had to approve developmental works to be undertaken by the districts for current financial year and onwards. Though the Government feels that the DDB meetings could be held anytime even without approval of annual plan, as had been the practice in past, yet it hasn’t lined up the meetings so far in the absence of an indication about the current year’s plan.
“Previously the Government used to be sure that annual plan projected by it in the budget would be approved by the Planning Commission as the Commission officials used to drop broad hints to the State officials of Planning and Finance Departments about the plan, PMRP and Centrally Sponsored Schemes. However, during current financial year in the absence of new Planning Commission, the Government has not been able to get any clue about the plan and, therefore, it was indecisive about allocations to be made to the districts,” sources said.
Adding to the worries of the Government is the imposition of Model Code of Conduct for Assembly elections by the Election Commission of India, which was likely to come into effect anytime in the month of September, which would bar the Government from taking up new developmental works.
Sources said Chief Minister Omar Abdullah during his meeting with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in Srinagar last month had taken up the issue of early approval of annual plan of Jammu and Kashmir to save the State from the financial crunch. However, the Centre has decided that it would take up annual plans of all States after approval of budget by the Parliament. However, it has decided to take up plans of five poll bound States including Jammu and Kashmir, New Delhi, Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand at the earliest.
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