The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India report, accessed by activist Vihar Dhurve under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, reveals that less than 20 percent of the funds have been spent by states and union territories (UT) under the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP) scheme.
Not just that, the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD), has been releasing funds to the States/UTs without even monitoring if the previous funds have been properly utilised.
Criticising the government for its failure to implement the project, the CAG report said, “Audit noticed that the emphasis of the Ministry was merely on exhausting the allocated budget by release of funds rather than on the basis of position of actual utilisation of earlier release.”
One of the most ambitious projects of the BJP-led NDA government, the Beti Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP) scheme was launched in April 2015 to control the decline in Child Sex Ratio (CSR).
What has come to light is that, out of Rs 19,999 lakh was allocated by the Centre to the MWCD for the implementation of the scheme in 100 selected districts till 2016-17, only Rs 5,489 lakh was released by the MWCD to the States/UTs for carrying out the scheme in 100 selected districts.
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Moreover, only Rs 1,865 lakh of Rs 5,489 lakh, was spent by the States/UTs for the implementation of the scheme whereas the remaining Rs 3,624 still remains unspent.
Apart from this, the report also reveals that out of the funds released in 2015-16, the States/UTs already had an amount of Rs 4,410.46 lakh leftover. Despite this, the MWCD released another Rs 786.4 lakh to the States/UTs for the same, without scrutinising if the earlier funds had been utilised.
Another amount of Rs 3298.85 lakh was added to the amount of unutilised funds with the States/UTs when a fresh amount of funds was released to the States/UTs in 2017-18, taking the total amount released to Rs 5,489 lakh.
“Despite balance funds of Rs 3624.05 lakh lying with the state governments as of March 2017, the Ministry released fresh funds of Rs 3298.85 lakh during 2017-18, which was an avoidable expenditure,” the report said.
The government should realise that if it is undertaking any project/scheme/work then it should do it with proper plan instead of doing it only for the sake of doing and getting credit.