Expenditure of hill districts spelt out
Source: The Sangai Express / DIPR
Imphal, October 28 2021:
Director of Tribal Affairs and Hills C Arthur Worchuiyo has highlighted the expenditure of the hill districts of Manipur during a press conference held today at Old Secretariat, Imphal.
As per the press note issued by the Secretariat Finance Department during the press conference, the State Government constituted a 'committee on August 25, 2021 to examine the funds released to the districts in the last 10 years, starting from Finance Year 2011-2012.Based on the information submitted by the Tribal Affairs and Hills Development Department and the information of overall expenditure from the Accountant General and Budgetary Figure with the Finance Department, the committee made a comparison of the actual development funds released for the hills districts against the overall annual developmental expenditure of the Government.
The press note said that the committee, upon examining all available information, concluded that the fund flow to the hills showed a fluctuating trend from 2012-13 and increased again from 2017-18.Further it stated that the last two Financial Years (FY 2019-20 and FY 2020-21) showed substantial increase in the absolute figures and in the percentage of fund such as Total Developmental Expenditure as per Budget figures during 2011-12 is Rs 3396.73 crore, Rs.3381.18 crore (2012-13 ).
In 2013-14 the total expenditure was Rs 3477.51 crore while in 2014-15 it was increased to Rs 4124.60 crore and in 2015-16 it was Rs 4290.15 crore.
Hill expenditure as per the Departments report was Rs 1321.93 crore in 2011-12, Rs 1330.89 crore in 2012-13, Rs 1270.52 crore in 2013-14, Rs 1411.14 crore in 2014-15 and Rs 1337.89 crore in 2015-16 respectively.
The percentage of hill expenditure against total is 38.92% in 2011-12, 39.36% in 2012-13, 36.54% in 2013-14, 34.21% in 2014-15 and 31.19% in 2015-16.The total developmental expenditure as per Budget figures in 2016-17 is Rs 4597.33 crore, Rs 4830.73 crore in 2017-18, Rs 5015.34 crore in 2018-19, Rs 4874.58 crore in 2019-20 and Rs 7051.10 crore in 2020-21.Hill expenditure on the other hand is Rs 1538.98 crore in 2016-17, Rs 1843.72 crore in 2027-18, Rs 1845.34 crore in 2018-19, Rs 2133.09 crore in 2019-20 and Rs 3225.99 crore in 2020-21.Percentage of hill expenditure against the total amount is 33.48% in 2016-17, 38.17% in 2017-18, 36.79% in 2018-19, 43.76% in 2019-20 and 45.75% in 2020-21 .
According to the report of the committee, some major departments including Planning, TA & Hills, Rural Development, PWD, PHED etc are responsible for the recent increase in the expenditure.
There are many smaller departments whose expenditure is less due to the overall small budgetary allocation.
Implementation of a few major projects leads to skewed fund distribution between hill and valley districts and also between the different hill districts.
The committee made their recommendation based on the observations that moving away from the hill-valley fund allocation system in the Budget to that of tribal sub-plans will help in monitoring the fund allocation and expenditure better.
The report said that projects cannot be divided based on expenditure.
Many projects taken up in the valley are for the benefit of the hill areas including Tribal Research Institute, Hill Village Chiefs Guest House etc or for the State as a whole like Manipur Secretariat, Inter-State Bus and Truck Terminus etc.
The present budgetary allocation in the form of hill-valley is not able to capture the actual fund allocation and expenditure for the hill districts, thereby making the monitoring difficult, stated the press note.
Tribal Affair & Hills Director C Arthurchuiyo, Joint Secretary ( Finance) Neilenthang Telien and other dignitaries attended the programme.