HRD rapped for underutilisation of allocated education funds

The Finance Ministry has pulled up the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry for poor utilisation of funds in a meeting held earlier this week, terming its performance ‘not satisfactory’—the same term it used a month back to indicate the ministry’s shortfalls on financial targets. The reprimand comes at a time when the ministry has plans to open a host of new institutes.

While the ministry’s allocations have been increased by 18 per cent this year—from Rs 6,480 crore in 2007-08 to Rs 7,593 crore for 2008-09, there appear to be serious discrepancies in the way the funds are being used. The situation is particularly grim in the distance education sector, with the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) spending just Rs 40 crore up to December 2007 against an allocation of Rs 108 crore. Not a paisa was spent out of the Rs 502 crore allocated to the National Mission on IT and Communication Technology, while Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore only spent Rs 25 crore out of Rs 55 crore. The funds allocated towards the development of languages also remained untouched. While the Directorate of Hindi spent just Rs 5.10 crore out of Rs 9 crore allocated, the Hindi Shiksha Mandal in Agra used only Rs 2.8 crore of the Rs 17 crore it had access to. The situation was no better in the elementary education sector, with lapses evident in schemes such as Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya.

Although the HRD Ministry maintained that the states were responsible for not utilising the disbursed funds effectively, the Finance Ministry was not convinced by the argument and demanded a more proactive approach towards resolving the situation.

Incidentally, it is not only the Finance Ministry which has raised this issue. The Planning Commission and the Parliamentary Standing Committee also echoed the same view.