The Hindu : Funds crunch may hit various Ministries

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 12, 2003

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Funds crunch may hit various Ministries

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI FEB. 11. With the budgetary support for the coming fiscal being set at Rs. 1,17,500 crores, the Planning Commission is understood to have indicated to various Ministries the schemes and programmes which are likely to be affected because of funds crunch.

Against 2002-03 gross budgetary support (GBS) of Rs. 1,13,500 crores, the Planning Commission had sought an outlay of Rs. 1,34,000 crores for the coming fiscal. However, the Finance Ministry pointed to a resource crunch and initially offered a GBS of Rs. 1,00,000 crores which was subsequently raised to Rs. 1,17,500 crores, a four per cent increase over the current outlay.

According to the Planning Commission sources, with 58.9 per cent of the GBS being earmarked for the Central Plan, the additional amount available next year would be just Rs. 2,336.50 crores, just about sufficient to make an extra provision of Rs. 1,800 crores for the Delhi Metro and an extra provision of Rs. 250 crores for the Ministry of External Affairs to meet certain overseas commitments.

With this scenario before it, the Planning Commission has indicated that the additional Rs. 1,000 crores for the National Highway Development Project (NDHP) would be difficult to arrange and, therefore, the work outside the NDHP would also slow down.

Similarly, it would be difficult to meet the additional requirement of Rs. 700 crores sought by the Power Ministry for the hydel sector and the village electrification programme of the Ministry of Non-conventional Energy Sources could also be affected.

The Commission is understood to have informed the Department of Science and Technology that the proposed funding of Rs. 150 crores for drug research would have to wait.

Also, there would be under-provisioning for the Department of Rural Development and watershed programmes, including the recently-announced Haryali programme, would not get any incremental funding.

The Government's pet project of Sarvasiksha Abhiyan could also be severely affected as the allocation for this project was proposed to be raised from Rs. 4,900 crores in the current year to Rs. 7,100 crores in the next fiscal.

The mid-day meal programme for schools could also suffer, as there is already an outstanding of Rs. 500 crores to be paid to the Food Corporation of India on this count.

In higher education, the Education Ministry has sought a step up of over Rs. 1,000 crores. But with limited availability of funds, the outlay could be frozen at the current level. Similarly, the Tourism Ministry has reportedly been told that against its proposal for Rs. 400 crores increase in outlay, an increase of Rs. 100 crores could be considered.

Many other Ministries and Departments have been reportedly informed that there could be cuts in their outlay or that they would be frozen.

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