Assam utilizes a mere 50% Plan allocation

Since as much as Rs 6,250 crore was not utilized in the last fiscal, it has had a major impact on the development engine of the State — after all, for a State like Assam, Rs 6,250 crore is a huge amount indeed

GUWAHATI, June 11: As far as development works in Assam are concerned, the situation now is as anarchic as the one during the last part of the second AGP government from 1996 to 2001. There seems to be no control at all of Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi and other ministers over different departments — everything is happening randomly and arbitrarily.

It is a matter of utter shame that in the fiscal 2013–14, the State failed to utilize almost 50 per cent of the Plan allocation. At different review meetings with the departments in the last financial year, Gogoi had repeatedly laid stress on the need to increase the pace of fund utilization, but nothing happened. Dissidence activities in the State Congress is one of the reasons behind the anarchy in development works.

In the fiscal 2013–14, the Planning Commission allocated Rs 12,500 crore. According to a source in the Planning and Development Department, up to March 31, 2014 only half of the amount had been utilized. This performance is the worst in the past decade.

Due to the non–utilization of the Plan allocation to such a large extent, a whole lot of development schemes did not turn into reality. Since as much as Rs 6,250 crore was not utilized in the last fiscal, it has had a major impact on the development engine of the State — after all, for a State like Assam, Rs 6,250 crore is a huge amount indeed.

The departments would now put the blame for the non–utilization of 50% of the Plan allocation on the poll code of conduct that was in effect before the Lok Sabha election. They would say that no scheme can be sanctioned if any poll code of conduct is in effect. But such justification would be meaningless because the Lok Sabha election was a scheduled affair and everybody was aware of the tentative timing of the election. Every department ought to have adopted measures much ahead of the election, which was a possible thing to do but which was not done — obviously due to callousness and lack of work enthusiasm. As a result, people have been deprived of the much–needed development.

Will this situation continue, depriving people of the development they are crying for, or will the Chief Minister make the necessary course correction by making the departments utilize the whole of the Plan allocation that will be announced in this financial year? And, importantly too, will Gogoi fix responsibility on anyone for the poor performance in the last financial year?

(Source) The Sentinel Assam – The Largest Media group of North-East India — focused on news publishing. Combined circulation of the group is over 120,000 newspapers per day, making it the largest newspaper group in the region. The Sentinel is the only English daily in the Northeast India with five editions published simultaneously from Guwahati, Dibrugarh, Shillong, Silchar and Itanagar. For all local, news from Assam, national and international news please visit http://www.sentinelassam.com/