Kerala now scrambles to spend ₹16,032 crore in two months

With just 68 days remaining in the current FY, the state plan fund spending remains an abysmal 33%, and the departments and local government institutions will now be seen scrambling to finalise and implement projects to avoid lapsing ₹ 16,032 crores! At the same time, in the background of the financial crisis, the government would find it a formidable task to provide the fund for the projects if various departments manage to finalise projects in the weeks remaining. 

The figures show that the project execution by the three-tier panchayat system, which is touted as a success model of decentralisation in Kerala, could only use up just 12% of the plan allocation so far. The Law Department failed to spend even a single penny while six departments used less than 20% of the total allocation. 
 

These figures speak volumes: 

• Annual plan fund allocation: ₹ 24,000 cr
• Total funds used: ₹ 7967.74 cr
• Remaining plan fund: ₹ 16,032 cr

plan fund use:

• Local self government bodies: 12%
• Law Department: 0%
• Environment Dept: 19.62% 
• Food, PDS: 6.87% 
• Home, Vigilance: 8.62% 
• Legislature: 14.20% 
• Planning: 14.33% 
• Ports: 14.33%

Even though most of the departments fared poorly, the Public Works Department plan execution exceeded the allocation while Administration Reforms, Sports, Finance and power departments utilised more than 50% of the allocation. 

A high-level meeting chaired by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had decided to expedite plan project implementation, but numerous projects are still awaiting the administrative sanction. The rush to finalise projects and get approvals in the eleventh hour used to create chaos in the entire system by the end of the financial year. Scrutiny of projects, implementation and transparency would suffer in the scramble for getting things finalised by the end of March.  

• Plan fund ulitization
• Kerala economy
• LDF govt
• Local self governments
• Financial Crisis