113th Report of Department related Parliamentary Standing Committee under DoPPW

DEPARTMENT RELATED PARLIAMENTARY STANDING COMMITTEE ON PERSONNEL, PUBLIC GRIEVANCES, LAW AND JUSTICE

The Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice headed by Shri Sushil Kumar Modi, MP, Rajya Sabha, presented its One Hundred Thirteenth Report on the Demands for Grants (2022-23) of two Departments of the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions – (i) Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances; and (ii) Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare on the 24th March, 2022 to both the Houses of Parliament.

While examining the Demands for Grants, the Committee has also made an appraisal of performance, programmes, and policies of these two Departments vis-à-vis expenditure made out of Consolidated Fund of India in the current financial year during the meeting held on 3rd March, 2022.

The Committee scrutinised the Demands for Grants thoroughly in its meeting with the Secretary, Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances; and the Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare. The Report was considered and adopted by the Committee on 22nd March, 2022. The Recommendations/Observations made by the Committee in this Report are enclosed. The entire Report is available on https://rajyasabha.nic.in.

RECOMMENDATIONS/OBSERVATIONS – AT A GLANCE
on
113th Report on Demands for Grants (2022-23) of the Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances; and the Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare

OVERALL ASSESSMENT OF THE DEMANDS FOR GRANTS

DEPARTMENT OF ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS AND PUBLIC GRIEVANCES (DARPG)

1. The Department has been able to spend only 61.7% of the budgetary allocation made under RE 2021-22 upto 31st January, 2022, leaving 38.3% to spend in just 2 months. As per the instructions issued by the Ministry of Finance (MoF), expenditure in the last quarter has to be restricted to 33% ceiling and in last month (March) expenditure has to be restricted to 15% of ceiling. Thus, the performance of the Department in terms of utilization of funds needs considerable improvement. A focused planning and close monitoring of utilization of funds is required on the part of the Department. As restrictions imposed due to COVID on expenditure are waning, the Department should have met the quarterly expenditure targets set by the MoF without fail. The Committee, therefore, recommends that the Department should identify the bottlenecks responsible for not being able to maintain the pace of utilization required as per the instructions of the MoF and take remedial measures to improve its performance in utilization of funds in future.

(Para 2.5)

Scheme(s) of DARPG

2. The track record of the Department in terms of utilization of funds under the scheme has been very poor. In 2020-21 BE of Rs. 30 crores got reduced to Rs.15 crores at RE stage, and the actual expenditure incurred was Rs. 11 crores only. In 2021-22, BE of Rs. 15 crores got reduced to Rs.12 crores and the Department has been able to utilize only about 9.7 crores upto 09.02.2022. The Department may furnish detailed reasons for such under-utilization of funds to the Committee with Action Taken Note.

(Para 2.8)

3. After considering the elaborate mandate of the Department, the number of schemes and funds allocated to it does not seem commensurate with each other. The Committee is therefore of the view that the Department should devise more schemes and programmes aimed at improving the Human Resource potential and productivity of the government and project their funds requirements to the MoF accordingly.

(Para 2.10)

DEPARTMENT OF PENSION AND PENSIONERS’ WELFARE (DOPPW)

Scheme(s) of DOPPW

4. During 2020-21 the BE allocation was Rs. 5 crores for the scheme, however, it got reduced to Rs. 3.03 crores at RE stage and at the end of the year only Rs. 2.54 crores could be spent. On a similar pattern the scheme allocation for the BE 2021-22 was again Rs. 5 crores, which was reduced to Rs. 3.31 crores at the RE stage and the actual expenditure upto 31.01.2022 is Rs. 1.48 crores only. Not surprisingly, the BE for the Department under scheme for the year 2022-23 has been pegged at Rs. 3.57 crores only, against their projection of Rs. 4.40 made to the Ministry of Finance. The Department should furnish detailed reasons for such under-utilization of funds in the last two financial years to the Committee.

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