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A report by the Agriculture Ministry confirmed that though the federal government has hiked the ministry’s finances lately, the ministry has not used it totally because it surrendered over Rs 1 lakh crore within the final 5 years.
As per the report titled “Accounts at a Glance for the Year 2022-2023”, the Department of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare (DA&FW) surrendered Rs 21,005.13 crore of its annual allocation of Rs 1.24 lakh crore over the last monetary 12 months (April 2022-March 2023). This is sort of 4 instances the quantity surrendered by the division in the course of the earlier 12 months 2021-22, which was Rs 5,152.6 crore of its 1.23 lakh crore allocation.
The division surrendered Rs 23,824.53 crore in 2020-21, Rs 34,517.7 crore in 2019-20, and Rs 21,043.75 crore in 2018-19.
The Department of Agricultural Research and Education, which additionally comes beneath the ministry, has surrendered Rs 9 lakh of its complete allocation of Rs 8,658.91 crore in 2022-23, Rs 1.81 crore in 2021-22, Rs 600 crore in 2020-21, Rs 232.62 crore in 2019-20 and Rs 7.9 crore in 2018-2019.
With the Centre launching the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi in the course of the monetary 12 months 2018-19, the mixed finances of the 2 departments, beneath the Agriculture Ministry, elevated from Rs 54,000 crore (or 2.3% of the Centre’s complete finances of Rs 24.42 lakh crore) in 2018-19 to Rs 1.32 lakh crore (or 3.5% of the full Rs 39.44 lakh crore throughout 2022-23.
The scheme’s annual allocation has been within the vary of Rs 20,000 crore to Rs 75,000 crore during the last 5 years.
The authorities, nonetheless, marginally diminished the ministry’s complete allocation to 1.25 lakh crore in the course of the present monetary 12 months 2023-24 from Rs 1.32 lakh crore in 2022-23, maybe resulting from non-utilisation of funds.
The situation of fund give up by the Agriculture Ministry has additionally been highlighted by the Standing Committee on Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Food Processing, headed by P C Gaddigoudar, asking the federal government to “avoid” the “practice” of fund give up.
The panel report Demand for Grants (2023-24) of the Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, offered earlier than the Parliament on March 13, 2023, stated: “… the surrender of funds is mainly on account of less requirement under NES (North Eastern States), SCSP (Schedule Caste Sub-Plan) and Tribal Area Sub-Plan (TASP) Components”.
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
First uploaded on: 15-01-2024 at 05:00 IST
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