Imphal, January 05 2008: WITH ONLY 27.59 percent of the total revised outlay of Rs.1713.95 crores for the 2008-09, Manipur government failed to achieve the targeted plan expenditure of 70% of the total outlay of the state plan at the end of the third quarter of the current financial year.

A compiled accumulated funds incurred on the annual plan of the state prepared by the state planning department indicates only Rs 472.91 crores representing only 27.59% incurred against the revised outlay of Rs.1713.95 crores for the 2008-09 at the end of the December 2008 .

The expenditure status is against the targeted 70 percent expenditure in the end of the third quarter of the current financial year set by the government, the official said.

The Planning Commission of India initially approved an outlay of Rs.1660.14 crores as annual plan size for 2008-09 for the state of Manipur.

But it was revised at Rs 1713.95 crores in the later part.

The poor expenditure has put the Manipur government under cloud of difficulties to obtain increased outlay for the annual plan, 2009-10 as poor utilization of plan funds in the last few years has been a concern to the authority of the Planning commission of India as the state is experiencing low plan expenditure every year.

State chief minister, O Ibobi, in a review meeting to review plan expenditure and preparation of draft annual plan 2009-10 on December 30 last and has reportedly asked his cabinet ministers and senior officers to make sustained efforts for improving the plan expenditure, particularly in respect of Special Plan Assistant projects.

The state may get the impact of continuous poor utilization of plan fund in the next fiscal year 2009-10 which the state is projecting to demand 20 percent increased from this year's outlay.

The state is going to propose a plan outlay of Rs 2,412.02 crores to the Planning Commission of India for the financial year 2009-10 in the working group meeting schedule on 16th and 17th of this current month at New Delhi, according to an official source.

It is learnt by this correspondent that in the previous years too, the state could not achieved targeted plan expenditure of 70 percent of the total outlay at the end of the third quarter of the each fiscal year.

And it has been usual practice of the state government spending maximum funds of the annual outlay at the last quarter (last three months, January, February and March) by hook and cook.

Like the previous years, authorities of the state planning department easily assume that this year too state is likely to utilize maximum funds in the last minutes as observation indicated that as many as 13 sector and sub-sector reported zero expenditure till December 31.Another same number of sector and sub-sector spent single paise from the funds earmarked under the SPA.

For the SPA, except Rs.25 crores allocated for the "Conservation and maintenance of Loktak Lake" funds amounting to Rs.525 crores against the total outlay of Rs.550 crores have been released to the state by the Centre, the government source said.

The amounts have been released to the state government in four installments and state finance department has also authorized the amount released by the government of India, the source maintained.

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