Neeraj Rohmetra
JAMMU, Feb 5: Senior officials of Planning and Finance Department of the State have submitted detailed documents before the Union Finance Minister to ensure early release of balance amount of nearly Rs 1700 crores of Special Plan Assistance (SPA), which had been withheld for want of certain documents.
Reliable sources told EXCELSIOR that the entire exercise of the State Government was also aimed to make sure that funds didn’t lapse before the completion of financial year.
“The Union Finance Ministry had send series of proforma related to the release of the balance funds and the State Government officials were working overtime to return the same at the earliest possible”, sources said, adding, “after submission of same the Ministry sought some more clarifications and the same also stands submitted now”.
Sources stated that Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah was also abreast of the issue of delay in release of these funds under SPA category and had personally instructed the Planning and Finance Department to submit all the necessary details at the earliest.
The issue had also been raised up the Chief Minister in his recently meeting with Union Finance Minister, P Chidambaram in New Delhi, wherein the former emphasized for early release of the balance amount to meet the financial requirements of the State.
Corroborating these facts, Principal Secretary, Planning and Development, B R Sharma told EXCELSIOR that the Department had done all spadework and submitted all the necessary details to the Union Finance Ministry. “As soon as the Ministry officials wrote to us, we collected the required information from all the concerned Departments and submitted the same”.
Ruling out the possibility that these Central funds would lapse as financial year closing was approaching, Mr Sharma said, “we shall make sure that nothing like this happens. The entire documents stand submitted before the Finance Ministry and they are examining our documents”.
“We are very confident that the Union Ministry shall release the balance funds well in time”, he added.
Earlier, in January this year the Centre had released Rs 225 crore from Rs 1900 crore worth grants of the State’s annual plan of current financial year, which had been blocked for want of certain formalities leading to temporary crunch across the State.
Sources said that the Planning Commission of India (PCI) had expressed its displeasure over the tardy performance of the Departments and executive agencies involved in implementation of various projects. The funds were blocked mainly due to the poor performance shown by the State’s executive agencies and failure to submit Utilization Certificates.
The PCI had also asked the State Government to send project-wise details and Action Taken Report (ATR) of the projects undertaken by the State Government under SPA.
The amount was released only after senior officers of Planning and Finance Departments met the top brass of Planning Commission of India and explained their position on previous expenditure, Utilisation Certificates, upcoming development works, reducing Government expenditure, fiscal management and financial discipline maintained by the State besides the increase effected in own tax revenue during first three quarters of the State.
The Planning Commission had allocated Rs 7300 crore worth plan to Jammu and Kashmir for current financial year of 2012-13. Generally, majority of plan amount is released by the end of December or start of January to facilitate the State to draw up plan of development works and spend the plan amount by March 31 when the financial year ends.
However, this year, the Planning Commission had blocked Rs 1900 crore of the State on different grounds.
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