Par panel flays lower allocation for flagship schemes

New Delhi, May 3 () A Parliamentary panel today criticised the government for "gross downsizing" of the gross budgetary support to flagship schemes such as Aadhaar and Digital India programme.
"A scrutiny of allocation made under Plan schemes shows that the approved Gross Budgetary Support (GBS) has been grossly downsized, leaving a yawning gap between the proposed and the approved GBS," Parliamentary Standing Committee on IT said in a report tabled in the Lok Sabha today.
This, indeed, is a matter of grave concern to the Committee, it added.
The Committee, chaired by Anurag Singh Thakur, also endorsed the demand of Department of Electronics and IT (DeitY) for allocation of additional funds for the current fiscal.
"The Committee also desire that DeitY need to have adequate budget in the coming Plan years because this Department are implementing some of the schemes/programmes which are central to the building of a technologically empowered society to take a lead in the global digital economy," it said.
For 2016-17, Rs 9,530.90 crore was proposed as GBS, while only Rs 3,200 crore was approved.
On Aadhaar, the Panel said the current budgetary allocation of Rs 800 crore (against a proposed amount of Rs 1,468.23 crore) will not be sufficient to meet the requirement.
"The Committee desire that allocations to UIDAI may suitably be enhanced to meet the requirement so that the projected targets as per BE (Busget Estimates) proposal 2016-17 are not affected," it added.
UIDAI was earlier with NITI Aayog but from September 2015 onwards, it has been shifted under DeitY as an Attached Office.
Also, DeitY had proposed an estimate of Rs 5,778.07 crore for the Digital India Programme. However, a sum of only Rs 1,282 crore has been provided under this programme.
On expenditure for promotion of electronics and IT hardware manufacturing in India, an allocation of Rs 70 crore has been made against the proposed estimate of Rs 854.64 crore. "The Committee, therefore, recommend that adequate allocation of funds is needed under different schemes of this project and it should be the constant endeavour of the Department to engage with the Ministry of Finance for requisite allocation," it said.
The panel emphasised that the government should continue to give incentives in different areas of this ambitious project so that it remains an attractive field for multinationals, encouraging them to have more and more investments, it added. SR MR