Patna: Planning Commission, Advisor, NC Saxena on Thursday accused the Nitish Kumar government of "failing" to utilise a major chunk of funds provided for the Centrally-sponsored schemes saying it had deprived the state government of subsidy of Rs 10,000 crore to Rs 12,000 crore.
"The state government has failed to utilise a major chunk
of funds provided for the Central schemes," Saxena said while
addressing a workshop on Parliamentary Budgetary System
at the state assembly auditorium here.
"The proper utilisation will have fetched the state
getting subsidy of Rs 10,000 crore to Rs 12,000 crore
annually," he said.
He said even a state like Andhra Pradesh was receiving
funds because of better performance in execution of the
Central schemes more than Bihar.
"The reason is that there is no no proper administrative
system in Bihar which can maintain control over expenditure
and transparency in implementation of these schemes," Saxena
alleged.
Saxena further said population too was a major obstacle
in reaching more and more financial help to Bihar.
He said pressure was required to be built on the Centre
by Bihar together with Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan for Central
assistance on the basis of 1991 and 2001 census.
Saxena also lamented that "there was 93 per cent posts of
supervisors under the Integrated Child Development Project
vacant."
"Bihar has also failed to fill up the vacancies of
teachers and doctors... the attendance in schools has
increased but their presence is also a major problem," he
said.
Even the state`s GDP was one fifth of the GDP attained
by Maharashtra, Saxena said, adding agriculture production
too was a problem of Bihar.
The Planning Commission Advisor suggested that Bihar
should toe the lines of Andhra Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Tamil
Nadu for improvement in the health services.
PTI
