Bhubaneswar, Nov. 12: An assessment of the annual expenditure of various government departments till September end reveals that most of them have failed to spend even 30 per cent of their budgetary allocation.

Eight of these departments could not even spent 15 per cent of their budget. Departments headed by chief minister Naveen Patnaik have also been found lagging behind in terms of expenditure. Naveen handles water resources, home, works and the general administrations departments.

Sources said the approved annual plan outlay for 2011-12 had been pegged at Rs 15,000 crore. Of this, the budget provisions for the government departments stands at Rs 13,000 crore and the plan outlay for state-run public sector units (PSUs) in the field of energy and transport is Rs 2,000 crore.

A review of the plan expenditure of government departments by planning and coordination minister A.U. Singh Deo has revealed that the expenditure of all departments put together stood at Rs 4,608.34 crore, 35.45 per cent of the budget, till September end.

However, the auditor general’s (AG) report (March 2011 to September 2011) contradicts this claim. According to the AG’s review, the expenditure during this period stood at 32.80 per cent. The PSUs were able to spend only 7.02 per cent (Rs 140.45 crore) of the total allocation of Rs 2,000 crore.

Of the Rs 13,000 crore allotted collectively to the government, the departments headed by the chief minister has a share of Rs 3,718 crore, a little over one-third of the budget. Of this amount, the departments under him were able to spend only Rs 801.78 crore. Of the Rs 2,458.40 crore allotted to the water resources department, only Rs 549.89 crore or 22.37 per cent was spent.

Similarly, the works department, which deals with infrastructure such as construction of road and buildings in the state, has also failed to spend the allotted money. Of the total allotment of Rs 1,064.79 crore, it was able to spend Rs 185.83 crore.

On the contrary, agriculture minister Pradeep Maharathy, who has been basking in the reflected glory of the achievements of his predecessor Damodar Rout, did fairly well. Of Rs 703.48 crore allocated to his department, he has spent Rs 484.68 crore.

The most unfortunate part was that the state failed to promote the information technology sector. Of the department’s budgetary allocation of Rs 110.11 crore, only Rs 10.80 crore has been spent. Ramesh Chandra Majhi from Nowrangpur heads the department.

Planning and coordination minister A.U. Singh Deo’s department was able to spend Rs 412.41 crore of the Rs 1,165.78 crore allocation. Revenue and disaster management minister Surjya Narayan Patro’s performance was not encouraging. Of Rs 40.90 crore, his department spent just Rs 4.01 crore. Rural development’s Bikaram Keshari Arukh’s performance was quite dismal. However, women and child development minister Anjali Behera did fairly well. Out of the Rs 1,171.47 crore allotted to the department, it has spent Rs 576.88 crore. The performance of the two departments — the higher education and the sports and youth services — under Badri Naryan Patra, was quite poor. On the other hand, the health department has so far spent Rs 86.60 crore of its allocation of Rs 181.16 crore. SC and ST development minister Lal Bihari Himirika’s performance was also not satisfactory.

The state government has asked all the departments to take corrective measures. Planning and coordination minister A.U. Sigh Deo said: “All development departments should make extra efforts to fully utilise their budgeted plan funds and not surrender any money under plan budget. All the departments should submit the utilisation certificates on time.”