U.P. govt asks depts to expedite use of funds before end of fiscal

As the financial year 2024-25 comes to a close on March 31, the Uttar Pradesh government faces the challenge of expediting use of budgeted/allocated funds by many of its departments.

Various departments of the state government used 60 to 65% funds by February 28 and less than 70% by mid- March.Chief minister Yogi Adityanath has given fresh directives to various departments to expedite the use of funds and ensure an improvement in the situation.After reviewing the performance of various departments at a high-level meeting on Sunday, Yogi said, as quoted by an official spokesman, “2024-2025 is nearing an end. Situation of the use of funds against the allocations is not satisfactory in certain departments. Additional chief secretaries/principal secretaries are expected to expedite the utilisation of funds. The chief secretary and additional chief secretary should review the situation in various departments and make efforts to bring about an improvement in the situation.”

Minister for finance Suresh Khanna said the state government’s thrust was also on the qualitative use of funds. “We have asked various departments to make qualitative use of funds as well,” Khanna said on the phone.

The state government presented an annual budget of ₹7.36 lakh crore for 2024-25, those aware of the development said.It later presented the first supplementary budget of ₹12,209.93 crore and the second supplementary budget of ₹17,865.72, thereby taking the size of the state’s total budget size to ₹7.66 lakh crore in 2024-25.

The state government has so far used ₹4.90 lakh crore. It has asked various departments to expedite submission of utilisation certificates to ensure that the central funds for various centrally sponsored schemes are released by the end of financial year.

A senior officer said the state government would ensure that the central funds are released before March 31, 2025 and the departments have been asked to either make use of budgeted funds or surrender them by the next week. At the same time, efforts are being made to narrow down the gap between the budgetary estimates and actual expenditure in Uttar Pradesh.

There was a gap of 18% in the state government’s revenue expenditure over the budgetary estimates in 2023-2024. This gap (in revenue expenditure) was 17% in 2021-22 and 19% in 2022-23. There has been a wide gap between the budgetary estimates and actual capital expenditure of the state government. This gap was 29% under the head capital expenditure in 2023-24. This gap was 38% percent in 2021-22 and 30% in 2022-23.