Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Oct 26: With Election Commission of India (ECI) announcing Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir leading to imposition of Model Code of Conduct, the Union Ministry of Finance headed by Arun Jaitley has approved entire amount of Rs 11,900 crores in favour of annual plan, Prime Minister’s Re-construction Plan (PMRP) and Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSSs) without any plan meeting in the absence of delay in constitution of the Planning Commission or an alternate body at the Centre.
Jammu and Kashmir will get entire amount projected by it in its annual budget for plan, PMRP and CSSs for 2014-15.
Planning and Development Principal Secretary BR Sharma told the Excelsior that in view of the fact that the Planning Commission was yet to be constituted by the Government of India and Assembly elections have been announced in the State, the Union Ministry of Finance has given its nod to J&K’s annual plan for 2014-15 worth Rs 7300 crores and PMRP to the tune of Rs 600 crores.
Sharma said the Union Ministry of Finance has assured the State that they will be getting annual plan of Rs 7300 crores projected by them for current financial year of 2014-15 and Rs 600 crores under the PMRP.
Accordingly, the Planning and Development Secretary said, the Government has allocated plan for current financial year to all 22 districts of the States making previous fiscal year 2013-14 as the basis as the Government couldn’t hold the District Development Board (DDB) meetings in view of Lok Sabha elections in April-May and then floods in September. In between, the Government waited for approval of annual plan but it didn’t materialize as new BJP Government at the Centre was yet to take decision on constitution of Planning Commission or form an alternate body to finalize annual plan of the States.
Official sources said out of Rs 7300 crores worth annual plan, Rs 600 crores PMRP and Rs 4000 crores CSSs totaling Rs 11900 crores, the State Government has already received over Rs 4000 crores and the Finance Ministry, which was dealing with annual plans of the States presently till the Planning Commission or an alternate body was constituted, has assured release of remaining funds expeditiously.
“The Finance Ministry has assured the State Government that the imposition of Model Code of Conduct will not come in the way of release of installments of annual plan, PMRP and CSSs. The State will continue to get the installments under the three heads every month and full amount will be cleared by March 31 next depending upon utilization of funds and certificates provided by the concerned Departments,” sources said.
As far as financial crisis in non-plan sector was concerned, sources said it was due to delay in release of funds due to which the Government couldn’t give two DA installments amounting to 17 per cent to its employees even on the eve of Assembly elections. However, they said, the bills pending in the treasuries would be cleared now after approval of the Union Finance Ministry to its plan.
On allocation of new works by the District Development Commissioners in the absence of DDB meetings, sources said, the DDCs have been authorized to go ahead with ongoing development works and take new works in hand in consultations with present and upcoming elected representatives.
As far as plan allocation of the districts was concerned, sources said they had been allocated the plan amount equal to the previous financial year of 2013-14 as annual plan of the State for current year was also same as that of last year.
It may be mentioned here that only one DDB meeting was held this year in first week of September when floods struck Jammu and Kashmir and the Government had to stop remaining DDB meetings as the administration was busy with relief and rehabilitation operations.
This is for the third consecutive year that J&K has been given Rs 7300 crores worth annual plan. The plan amount was same in 2012-13 and 2013-14. However, in 2012-13, the Planning Commission had released only Rs 5800 crores worth plan in favour of J&K and imposed a cut of Rs 1500 crores. In 2013-14, the J&K’s plan amount was released in full. This financial year, the Government had projected similar plan amount but sought increase allocations of Rs 4000 crores under the CSSs.
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