We are bemused by seek and hide game adopted by the Planning Commission of India in regard to release of funds approved for various projects during the current financial year. If submission of desired blue prints of projects envisaged for execution during the plan period as well a repeated communication from the State Government for release of plan allocations to set the process of development rolling do not work with the Planning Commission, we would like to know what is going to work then. Is the Planning Commission going to make it a ritual that the Chief Minister should take a dash to New Delhi, meet the top functionaries including the Finance Minister and occasionally the Prime Minister and the Vice Chairman of the Planning Commission to get things going? If it is so then we think this would be a bad precedent? Eight months of the current financial have already gone by and release of funds is nowhere in sight. There are about 6600 projects, small, medium and big ones, waiting to be put on rails. But these are starved for want of funds.
The projects that have been submitted for approval have been hammered out after long and serious discourse with experts about their feasibility and viability. The Planning Commission has asked further details and clarifications about some of the proposed projects and the information has been passed on in good time. Where is the bottleneck, we are unable to identify. An amount of 1900 crore rupees has been sanctioned under Special Plan Assistance scheme and the proposed projects have been drawn and forwarded under the same head. Work on these projects cannot be commissioned since that is not backed by financial resource. Release of allocated funds has become hassle prone for the State for reasons not clear to us in the media. The State had been granted Rs 7300 crores worth annual plan for 2013-14, which was equal to the amount approved during 2012-13. However, during 2012-13, the State had ended up with getting only Rs 5800 crores as the Planning Commission had imposed a cut of nearly Rs 1500 crores under various components. Going by this standard, it is likely that last hour cut might be applied for the current financial year as well.
Ours is a hilly state and in comparison to the plains, we have limited work days available to us in one calendar year. For three months of severe winter, hardly any project work can be carried through the winter season thus reducing the number of work days ordinarily available to us. This needs to be kept in view when emphasis is laid on time frame applicable to all states including J&K. If we cast a glance at development projects undertaken and completed in previous years we will find that non-availability of expected number of work days always have had a shortfall. It means that some of the criteria stipulated by the Planning Commission for various projects on national level with an eye to uniformity shall have to be considered more objectively in the case of Jammu and Kashmir State. If the national level uniformity is not maintained to its full, that should not become a cause for deferring release of allocated funds.
It does not leave good taste in the mouth to tell people that the Chief Minister will be taking up the matter with the concerned authorities in New Delhi every time when a jam of sorts happens in the flow of funds. J&K is a deficit state and it has to be provided financial succor. That should not be converted into chronic malady of sorts but remedial measures need to be thought about. At this point of discourse on the subject, we will also try to be objective to the extent of expecting the State Government to undertake a slew of administrative and financial reforms to make execution of projects simplified. Who does not know that red tapism is the bane of proper and timely execution of projects? Who does not know that at some levels of administrative structure inefficiency and incompetence cause disappointment to the stakeholders? We need to observe the guidelines provided by the Planning Commission when it accords sanction to various projects. These guidelines have to be drawn in consultation with state officials, and once that stage is covered, then of course no scope is left for asking to revise the guidelines or instructions. There is a communication gap of sorts which should be bridged over.
We hope that things will not come to point where the Chief Minister has to make the issue of release of funds an exclusive agenda of his visit to Delhi. New Delhi must ensure that such matters proceed along the chartered course without need for intervention from top or bottom. J&K State’s economy is tiny as well as sensitive. It is unwise to bring it under pressure.
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