NEW DELHI: A parliamentary panel has asked the labour ministry to look into the reasons for not being able to ensure optimal utilisation of funds made available during the coronavirus-induced pandemic. The report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Labour on the Demands for Grants for 2021-22 was tabled in Lok Sabha on Tuesday.
The panel said though the ministry’s expenditure for the current fiscal was bumped up on account of the newly-launched Pradhan Mantri Gareeb Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY), the government could only spend about 52.8% of the funds till February 15.
The report also said two new schemes, the PMGKY and Aatmanirbhar Bharat Rojgar Yojana (ABRY) were launched with the intention to cater to the needs of people during the pandemic and emphasised that the ministry must make “accurate budgetary estimates” before seeking supplementary allocations.
“The scheme wise analysis of utilisation of funds for 2020-21 (up to February 18, 2021) revealed that the Employees’ Pension Scheme (EPS) and PMGKY are the only schemes which recorded expenditure to the extent of 100% and 109.62%, respectively vis-a- vis RE whereas for most other schemes, the percentage of utilisation has been to the extent of 70-80%,” the report said.
In case of the National Child Labour Project (NCLP) and Social Security Schemes for Tea Plantation Workers in Assam, utilisation recorded was as low as 24.52% and 30% respectively.
The committee also pointed to the government’s failure to meet physical targets of key schemes like the Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Maan-Dhaan Yojana (PMSYM) where against a target of enrolling 2 crore new beneficiaries, only 1.18 lakh were enlisted. The National Pension Scheme for Traders, Shopkeepers and Self-Employed Persons scheme suffered similarly, with only 6,213 beneficiaries enlisted against a target of 50 lakh.