Key Health, HRD Min schemes fail to utilise allocated funds

The Ministries and their departments try to reach their overall target of expending 75 per cent of the Budget allocation, but several important schemes have failed to do so.

india helathcare, india helathcare schemes, Health Ministry, Health and Family Welfare and the Ministry, Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan, indian express

The Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration was given Rs 130 crore, but only Rs 80 crore was spent. (File)

Several schemes of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) have shown very poor expenditure levels during the nine months of this financial year, shows data.

The Ministries and their departments try to reach their overall target of expending 75 per cent of the Budget allocation, but several important schemes have failed to do so. In many cases, nothing has been spent in almost nine months. In response to RTI applications filed by The Indian Express, the Department of Higher Education, under the HRD Ministry, said it has spent only Rs 801.83 crore of the total Budget allocation of Rs 2,100 crore for the RUSA (Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan) scheme till December 16.

The department was allocated Rs 608.87 crore for the Total Research and Innovation scheme, but till that date only 25 per cent of the allocation was utilised. Information provided by the department shows this poor level of expenditure was also in the World Class Institutions scheme, for which Rs 400 crore was allocated. Till December 16, only Rs 80 crore was spent — only 21.25 per cent.

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As per the earlier criterion, only 33 per cent of the Budget allocation was allowed to be spent in the last quarter (January-March). However, in a communication to the Ministries, the Department of Economic Affairs said, on December 27, the Centre would allow only 25 per cent of the Budget allocation in last quarter.

The Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration was given Rs 130 crore, but only Rs 80 crore was spent. The Rs 95-crore allocated to the Uchchatar Avishkar Abhiyan scheme was unspent till that date. Similarly, the Rs 50-crore allocated to the Transformational and Advanced Research in Science was not spent at all. The Prime Minister’s Fellowship for Research was given Rs 50 crore, but only Rs 18.07 crore was spent —36 per cent.

The Scheme for Transformational and Advanced Research in Sciences, launched in February 2019, was allocated Rs 50 crore, but nothing was spent till December 16. Similarly, the Rs 30-crore allocated to the Global Initiative for Academic Network was unused till that date. A total of Rs 32 crore was allocated for three schemes — Prime Minister’s Girls’ Hostels, National Academic Depository and Creation of Centres of Excellence in Humanities — but all this was unspent till December 16.

The situation was no better in the Department of School Education, another department of the HRD Ministry. An amount of Rs 368.20 crore was allocated for the Means cum Merit Scholarship Scheme but only Rs 6.94 crore was spent till January 9 — 1.88 per cent. The SUCCESS (Incentive to Girl Child) scheme was allocated Rs 100 crore, but only 8.56 crore was spent till January 9.

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On the other hand, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare was able to spend Rs 3,740.29 crore of the allocated amount of Rs 4,000 crore for the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojna.

But the expenditure level was poor for PMJAY (Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana) — Rs 6,556 crore was allocated but only Rs 2,186.55 crore was utilised till January 12 (33.35 per cent).

Shyamlal Yadav

Shyamlal Yadav is one of the pioneers of the effective use of RTI for investigative reporting. He is a member of the Investigative Team. His reporting on polluted rivers, foreign travel of public servants, MPs appointing relatives as assistants, fake journals, LIC’s lapsed policies, Honorary doctorates conferred to politicians and officials, Bank officials putting their own money into Jan Dhan accounts and more has made a huge impact. He is member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). He has been part of global investigations like Paradise Papers, Fincen Files, Pandora Papers, Uber Files and Hidden Treasures. After his investigation in March 2023 the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York returned 16 antiquities to India. Besides investigative work, he keeps writing on social and political issues. ... Read More

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