Jammu, Nov 12:
Advisor to Governor, Kewal Krishan Sharma, today chaired maiden official meeting, after assuming office, to review the functioning of the Finance Department. The meeting was attended by Principal Secretary, Finance, Navin K Choudhary, Excise Commissioner, Talat Parvez Rohella, Commissioner Commercial Taxes, M Raju besides senior functionaries of the concerned departments. The Advisor enquired about the budgetary allocation under several heads for the Current Financial Year. He called for putting in coordinated efforts at various levels to address the bottlenecks, if any. Principal Secretary, Finance, Navin Choudhary informed the chair that the Gross Budget for the Current Financial Year is tune to Rs 80,313 crore whereas the Revenue Receipt is Rs 64,269 crore. He further informed that the State has a total of Rs 51,185 crore under Revenue Expenditure including Interest, Power purchase /liability/Subsidy, Maintenance/Repairs/Material and Supplies, Grant in Aid, CSS, and Primary Revenue Expenditure of Rs 46,195 cr (Salaries, Pension, Others) out of the said amount. It was given out that an amount of Rs 16,044 crore is under Capital Receipts including Negotiated loans, other borrowings, Miscellaneous Non-Debt creating, Recovery of Loans and Advances, Provident Fund and State Power Bonds/Uday while the Capital Expenditure including Regular Capex, Loans and Advances, Repayment of Debt, Equity and Investment, CSS and others is Rs 29128 crore. The Advisor further had a detailed review of funds allocated under Prime Minister Development Programme (PMDP) and asked for expediting the works under PMDP.
The Advisor also sought recommendations on effective utilization of funds for cleaning of Dal Lake included in PMDP. He said that all the issues put forth in the meeting shall be taken up with the concerned authorities.
The meeting was also informed about the Entitlement from the Centre, Revenue Performance, Tax Revenues, Non-Tax Revenues besides Extra Budgetary Decisions and likely Financial Burden including regularization of casual labourers and its financial implications.
Several key issues pertaining to Impact of 7th Pay Commission, Additional Salary Burden of CSS like SSA, RMSA, ICDS and Family Welfare and Power Purchase Liability besides languishing projects and recruitments were also discussed during the meeting. It was further informed that an Expenditure Monitoring Document being prepared every month to monitor the monthly expenditures.
At the outset, Principal Secretary, Finance briefed about the role being assigned to the designated functionaries of the department.
