Govt flayed for unrealistic expenditure estimates

The Comptroller and Auditor General of India has picked holes in the budgetary projections for expenditures made by various government departments for 2014-15, saying the projections were substantially underestimated compared with the supplementary grants obtained on account of ‘unrealistic expectations’.

In its report tabled in Parliament on Tuesday, the CAG said supplementary provisions exceeded the original provision by as much as 239,900 per cent in 2014-15, in case of ministry of petroleum and natural gas, which projected only Rs 1-crore (Rs 10-million) expenditure at the time of the Budget.

Similarly, the supplementary provision of the revenue department was 1,518 per cent higher than its initial projection of Rs 726.88 crore (Rs 7.26 billion), against Rs 11,033 crore (Rs 110.33 billion) in the additional provision.

“Large supplementary provisions indicate the ministries and departments did not prepare estimates of expenditure on a realistic basis and that the mechanism of holding pre-Budget meetings and scrutiny by the ministry of finance for ensuring realistic budgetary projections did not have the desired effect,” the CAG noted.

Image: Labourers transport sugarcane on a hand-cart outside a wholesale market in Kolkata. Photograph: Parth Sanyal/Reuters