With the state managing to utilise solely Rs 3,000 crore from Rs 11,000 crore value central grants for various departments within the ongoing fiscal, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann Wednesday requested administrative secretaries to elucidate how they suggest to avoid wasting the remaining fund from getting lapsed.
Mann was chairing a gathering with the executive secretaries of all of the departments at his residence. Sources current within the assembly mentioned CM requested as to how the officers plan to to avoid wasting Rs 8,000 crore from being returned to the Centre.
The secretaries, it’s learnt, advised the CM that they’d be capable of utilise the cash within the subsequent 4 months of the present fiscal as tenders for many of the works have already been opened and, in lots of instances, the work was in progress.
The assembly was paying homage to an analogous assembly that the CM chaired on December 23 final 12 months, when he had acquired upset with the secretaries for not utilising Rs 3,500 crore. This 12 months, the unutilised quantity is greater than double that quantity however the CM selected to listen to the officers patiently.
“He requested the secretaries to drag up their socks and expedite tasks the place this cash is to be spent. The assembly was referred to as by the CM to push the secretaries to utilise the grants as quickly as doable,” mentioned a supply, aware about the assembly.
The secretaries advised the CM that they weren’t getting central funds beneath a number of schemes. The officers additionally reiterated that with Centre not but clearing the Rural Improvement Payment (RDF), the restore work of rural roads, broken by the floods, was badly hampered.
The well being division conveyed that the grants meant for well being schemes had been additionally being stopped by the Centre as a result of state authorities calling its well being centres as Aam Aadmi Clinics.
The CM, it’s learnt, has referred to as one other assembly on Thursday to ask the secretaries concerning the funds that has been stopped by the Centre. “The CM will now put together a technique on to the right way to get such funds from the Centre,” mentioned an official.
The Punjab authorities has already moved the Supreme Court docket over the non cost of RDF by the Centre.
In the meantime, as per an official assertion, Mann requested the officers to make sure that the advantages of pro-people and development-oriented schemes of his authorities are percolated to each eligible individual.