Indian Agriculture Ministry surrenders ₹49,449 crore budgetary funds in five years
The Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare has left around ₹49,449.05 crore unspent in the last five years due to the factors such as slow pace of expenditure and delay in submission of utilisation certificates.
Of the revised estimate (RE) of ₹5,53,145.1 crore for the years between 2018-19 and 2022-23, the actual expenditure was ₹5,03,696.1 crore. An amount of ₹49,449.05 crore remained unutilised against RE. The highest unutilised amount was ₹21,537.83 crore in 2018-19, and the lowest unspent amount was ₹3,490.58 crore in 2021-22.
To a query on the reasons for surrendering huge amount by the Ministry, a written reply in Rajya Sabha by Ramnath Thakur, Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, said there are a number of reasons for the surrender of budgetary funds allocated. “Slow pace of expenditure, non-submission / delay in submission of utilisation certificates are the most common reasons,” he said.
SPARSH model
However, the last five years, Ministry of Finance has adopted a new fund flow mechanism to ensure reduction in delay in disbursement and utilisation of funds starting with introduction of Public Finance Management System (PFMS) up to introduction of SNA (single nodal account) -SPARSH model of funds flow. These mechanisms are aimed at reducing the timeline delays as well as ensuring creation of digital data on PFMS such that reliable data for future analysis and the examination is readily available to the Government and public at large.
This model being promoted by Department of Expenditure also attempts to capture the provisioning of funds for various focused areas of development like components for Scheduled Castes Sub Plan, Tribal Sub Plan, North Eastern Region components, etc., he said.
Asked about the details of funds surrendered in 2023-24 and till November of 2024-25, the Minister said the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare (including Department of Agricultural Research and Education) has surrendered an amount of ₹6,564.73 crore during 2023-24. No funds have been surrendered till November of the current financial year 2024-25, he said.
DARE’s returns
On the amount returned by the Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE), the Rajya Sabha reply said an amount of ₹1,380.67 crore was returned / lapsed / surrendered by DARE between 2018-19 and 2023-24. Of this, the maximum amount was ₹733.05 crore in 2020-21 and minimum was ₹18.31 crore in 2022-23.