NEW DELHI, Aug 17: Several flagship schemes of the Government for empowerment of women suffered from poor implementation, with huge amounts of money earmarked for them being left unspent, the CAG audit of the Ministry of Women and Child Development has revealed.
Scrutiny of appropriation accounts for the year 2009-12 revealed that there were persistent savings under the revenue section of the grant and these were re-appropriated to other heads defeating the purpose for which the budget provisions were passed by Parliament.
The Ministry surrendered its savings on the last day of the year in all the three years under review, which is in contravention of the rules.
Large unspent provisions under the grant reflected deficient budgeting by the Ministry, the CAG said.
The schemes that have come under CAG audit are Priyadarshni, National Mission for Empowerment of Women, Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Empowerment of Adolscent Girls, Indira Gandhi Maitriya Sahyog Yojna and Integrated Child Protection Scheme.
The Priyadarshini scheme aims to empower women and adolescent girls by helping them establish sustainable grass-root institutions and making them have access to micro finance and business development services.
However, scrutiny of the record revealed that implementation of the scheme was not up to expectations because savings under it ranged from 80 to 100 per cent of the total provisions during 2009-12.
In the case of the National Mission for Empowerment of Women, the scrutiny revealed that the pace of implementation of the scheme was very slow and savings ranged from 81 to 100 per cent.
Audit of the Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls revealed that the Ministry made budget proposals without making any assessment of actual requirement of funds during 2009-12 which resulted in funds ranging from 19 to 100 per cent remained unspent.
Similar was the case with the Indira Gandhi Maitriya Sahyog Yojna which is a special intervention designed to target pregnant and lactating mothers on a pilot basis.
The CAG said savings in all these schemes were surrendered on the last day, which displays inefficient system of monitoring of expenditure in as much as the savings were not foreseen by the Ministry well in time.
The CAG rejected the explanation of the Ministry that proposals from the implementing agencies were received throughout the year and it was not possible to estimate surplus funds till almost near closure of the financial year.
“The reply is not tenable in view of the enabling provisions in the GFR which states that savings as well as provisions that cannot be utilised should be surrendered immediately as there are foreseen without waiting for the end of the year,” the CAG said. (UNI)
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