GUWAHATI, March 10 � The failure of the Government of Assam to spend the plan allocations has become a matter of serious concern, while, a number of states having smaller population than Assam have managed to get much larger plan outlays by contributing from their own resources, which contributed to the development of those states.
Official sources told The Assam Tribune that in the year 2011-12, the plan allocation for Assam was Rs 9,000 crore but the State could spend only Rs 6357.46 crore and the balance amount was lapsed. In the current financial year, the allocation was Rs 10,500 crore and up to January around 60 percent of the money was spent and it is unlikely that the entire amount would be spent within the financial year. The plan size of the State for the coming year is yet to be finalized and the State Government is expecting around eight to 10 per cent hike.
Though Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has been claiming that the financial position of Assam improved considerably, the State has not been able to contribute from its own resources to increase its plan size as was done by several other states. At least 13 states of the country managed to increase their plan sizes in the current financial year by contributing from their own resources.
According to information gathered by The Assam Tribune, as per the 2011 census, Assam�s population was 2.58 percent of the total population of the country and the plan outlay of the State in the current financial year was Rs 10,500 crore. But States having smaller populations have managed to increase their plan size considerably by contributing from own resources. For example, the population of Chattisgarh is around 2.11 per cent of the national population and the plan size of the state in the current financial year was Rs 23,480 crore, which was more than 40 per cent higher than the outlay of the previous year.
The population of Punjab was 2.30 per cent of the national population and the plan size of the state was Rs 14,000 crore, the population of Haryana was 2.09 per cent of the country�s population and the plan size was Rs 26,485 crore, which was 30 percent higher than the previous year. The population of Delhi was 1.58 percent of India�s population and the plan size in the current financial year was Rs 15,852 crore. Jharkhand, which also has smaller population than Assam had a plan size of 16,300 crore, which is substantially higher than that of Assam.
Sources revealed that the plan size of the states are determined by several factors like population, backwardness, ability to contribute from their own resources etc and the failure of Assam to contribute from own resources is affecting the state.
Commenting on the failure of the State Government to spend the plan allocation, sources said that in 2011-12, several factors like the Assembly elections, passing of the state budget only in July etc contributed to the delay. But sources admitted that over the years, no serious effort was given on capacity building and most of the works departments do not have the ability to spend the plan funds on time.
However, on the positive side, the State is not spending plan money for payment of salaries as was the case earlier. At one point of time, the State used to spend up to 70 percent of the plan fund in payment of salaries, but after transfer of posts from plan head to non plan head, only a negligible amount of plan fund is now spent on salaries, sources added.
