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Social welfare takes a backseat in Maharashtra

Mumbai: The first separate audit report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India (CAG) on the local bodies in Maharashtra indicates that the focus on social welfare schemes in the State is blurring.

According to the report for the year ended March 31, 2006, the 28,793 village panchayats (VPs) received no funds for schemes related to irrigation, agriculture and social welfare in 2004-05.

At the district level too, these three areas point to a dismal record. “At the ZP [zilla parishad] level ... the expenditure incurred on agriculture was not only the least compared to other components, but also showed a decline in 2004-05 when compared to 2003-04. While the expenditure on education showed an 8.33 per cent decrease over the previous year, the expenditure on public works showed an increase of 8.42 per cent.”

In case of urban bodies, no expenditure was incurred on the Dalit Basti Sudhar Yojana in the Nashik Municipal Corporation and the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation.

In the 33 districts, the expenditure on administration, public works, irrigation and others increased in 2004-05 compared to 2003-04. However, the expenditure on health and sanitation, education, agriculture and social welfare decreased. In fact, there is an overall fall in revenue expenditure at the district-level. The ZP spending has dipped from Rs. 6,124 crore in 2003-04 to Rs. 6,095 crore in 2004-05.

One reason for the fall in spending on local schemes could be poor State allocation.

The report states: The Second State Finance Commission has recommended that 40 per cent of State revenues should be allocated to the Panchayati Raj Institutions [PRIs] ... The allocation to PRIs showed a declining trend and was less than 10 per cent of the total budget during the three-year period from 2002-03 to 2004-05.

Apart from the contracted spending, a range of factors listed in the report highlight many loopholes in the implementation of schemes. These include misappropriation of funds, unspent grants, loss of revenue, wasteful expenditure and discrepancies in bookkeeping to the tune of crores of rupees. They indicate that “the internal control mechanism in the zilla parishads was weak.”

For instance, a test check of 11 ZPs shows that Rs. 213.25-crore grants went unspent in the periods between 1992-93 and 2004-05. Another check of 18 ZPs found that there are 3,617 cases of misappropriation involving Rs. 32.12 crore pending as on March 2006.

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