Imphal, November 11 2008: LIKE IN the previous years, even though the first half of the fiscal year had passed only 12.70 percent has been reported spent against the revised outlay of Rs.1702.91 crores of annual plan 2008-09 for the state of Manipur.

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.

With the apprehensions that feel to the state government, state authorities have been asked to make sustained efforts for improving the plan expenditure and to achieve 70 percent utilization within December this year, a well placed official source said Tuesday.

It is pertinent to mention here that in the previous years also, the state could not achieved targeted plan expenditure of 70 percent of the total outlay at the end of the third quarter of the 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.

The reported status of the plan expenditure statement available with the state planning department can be thrown to a conclusion that like the previous years, this year also state is likely to utilize maximum funds in the last minutes as observation indicated that as many as 37 to the sector and sub-sector reported zero expenditure till the last day of September last.

The expenditure status of the other remaining sectors and sub-sectors were also not far below the 25 percent even though 19 of them cross 25 percent in spending the outlay to their respective sector or sub-sector.

There are a total of 86 sub-sectors under different sectors of the state government which are under the control of around 60 departments.

As per information available with the state planning department only Rs.216.25 crores (12.70%) are reported to have been spent against the revised of Rs.1702.91 crores under the annual plan, 2008-09 till the end of the first half of the current fiscal year in September.

Manipur government is targeting to achieve 70 percent utilization of the total outlay by December next, a well place official source said Tuesday.

Planning Commission of India, mention may be made here approved an outlay of Rs.1660.14 crores as annual plan size for 2008-09 for the state of Manipur.

But after revised the same for two instances, the final total outlay become Rs 1702.91 crores.

In a plan review meeting held recently, Manipur chief minister, O Ibobi Singh while expressing concern at the poor utilization of the plan funds and observing that unless the utilization improves, the state government may find difficult to obtain increased outlay for the annual plan 2009-10 has asked all concerned ministers and senior officials of the state government present in the meeting to make sustained effort for improving the plan expenditure, the official disclosed.

He also asked them to give special emphasis to the projects under the special plan assistant projects.

Meanwhile, the state government is preparing annual plan proposals by stepping 20 percent over the current year's outlay.

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