The Tribal Affairs and Hills Development department on Thursday held a press conference at old Secretariat, Imphal where TA and Hills director C Arthur Worchuiyo highlighted the expenditure of the Hill Districts of Manipur.
As per the press note issued by the Secretariat Finance department during the press conference, the state government had constituted a ‘Committee on August 25, 2021 which examined the funds released to the districts of the state for the last 10 years, starting from Finance Year 2011- 2012.
Based on the information submitted by departments and the information of overall expenditure from the Accountant General and Budgetary Figure with the Finance department, the committee made a comparison of the actual development funds released for the Hills Districts against the overall annual developmental expenditure of the Government.
The press note said that the Committee upon examining all available information concluded that the fund flow to the Hills, as percentage of the total developmental expenditure of the State, shows a fluctuating trend from 2012-13 but shows a general increasing trend from 2017-18.
Further it states that during the last two financial years (FY 2019-20 and FY 2020-21) show substantial increase in the absolute figures and in the percentage of funds such as Total Developmental Expenditure as per Budget figures during 2011-12 is Rs 3396.73 crore, in 2012- 13 Rs 3381.18 crore. In 2013-14 the total expenditure was Rs 3477.51 crore while in 2014-15 it was increased to Rs 4124.60 crore and in 2015-16 it was up to Rs 4290.15 crore.
Hill expenditure as per departments reports was Rs 1321.93 crore in 2011-12, Rs 1330.89 crore in 2012-13, Rs 1270.52 crore in 2013-14, Rs 1411.14 crore in 2014-15 and Rs 1337.89 crore in 2015-16 respectively. The percentage of Hill expenditure against total is 38.92 per cent in 2011-12, 39.36 per cent in 2012-13, 36.54 per cent in 2013-14, 34.21 per cent in 2014-15 and 31.19 per cent 2015-16 respectively.
The total Developmental expenditure as per Budget figures in 2016-17 is Rs 4597.33 crore, in 2017-18 Rs 4830.73 crore, in 2018-19 Rs 5015.34 crore, in 2019-20 Rs 4874.58 crore and in 2020-21 Finance year it was Rs 7051.10 Crore. Hill expenditure as per Departments reports is Rs 1538.98 crore in 2016-17, Rs 1843.72 crore in 2027-18, Rs 1845.34 crore in 2018-19, Rs 2133.09 crore in 2019-20 and Rs 3225.99 crore in 2020-21 respectively. Percentage of Hill expenditure against total is 33.48 per cent in 2016-17, 38.17 per cent in 2017-18, 36.79 per cent in 2018-19, 43.76 per cent in 2019-20 and it was 45.75 per cent in the Finance Year 2020-21 respectively.
In the Report of the Committee constituted by the state government that some major departments, including Planning, TA and Hills, Rural Development, PWD, PHED etc are responsible for the recent increase in the expenditure.
There are many smaller departments whose expenditure is less due to the overall small budgetary allocation of the department and do not have a major impact on the fund distribution. Implementation of a few major projects leads to skewed fund distribution between hill and valley Districts and between the different hill districts which was seen mainly in beneficiary-based schemes whereby district with a larger population get a larger share of scheme funds and in major infrastructure project and fund distribution between the different hill districts need to be streamlined was observation given by the committee.
The committee made their recommendation, based on the observations that to move away from the hill-valley fund allocation system in the Budget, to that of tribal Sub-plans, this will help in monitoring fund allocation and expenditure in a better way. For better allocation of funds for the Tribal Sub-plan and also among different districts, the state government is to consider adopting a formula along similar lines to that of the Finance Commission (both Central and State). Creating an institutionalised administrative mechanism to monitor the fund allocation and expenditure, the committee observed.
The Committee has reported that the report is to give fund flow to all the hill districts in the last ten years, starting from the financial year 2011-12. The report aims to provide department-wise break-up of the developmental expenditure in the hill areas based on the information submitted by the departments on the Schemes, various projects and other activities taken up by the State Government departments.
The Report stated that many projects cannot be divided strictly based on expenditure in hills and valley areas. Many projects taken up in the valley districts are for the benefit of the Hill Areas including Tribal Research Institute, Hill Village Chiefs Guest House, etc., or for the state as a whole like Manipur Secretariat, Inter-State Bus and Truck Terminus etc.
The present budgetary allocation in the form of hill-valley is not able to capture the actual fund allocation and expenditure for the hill districts, thereby making monitoring difficult, the press note.
Tribal Affair and Hills director C Arthurchuiyo, joint secretary (Finance) Neilenthang Telien and other dignitaries of the department were present at the conference.
