The J&K Administration's statement that Union Territory has registered a 12-fold increase in works completed in the current financial year over the previous years' average is an encouraging sign that the economy of Jammu Kashmir is being driven on the right path.
Jammu Kashmir Chief Secretary Arun Kumar Mehta on Thursday asserted that expenditure efficiencies in the system have vastly improved due to a series of financial reforms.
Mehta also hailed the improvement in current year's revenue collections despite the ongoing pandemic and stated that a strong and consistent revenue performance and a positive outlook for future will underpin equally strong capex growth this fiscal and beyond.
According to him, ‘In the past, on an average 2,000 works would be completed. As of today, 11,508 works have already been completed and by the time the current financial year comes to a close, around 25,000 works are expected to be completed. This represents a 12-fold increase over the previous years' average.'
Undoubtedly, the erstwhile state of Jammu Kashmir has been notorious for its financial indiscipline and unaccountability. The Chief Secretary in his earlier stint as the ACS Finance and Planning took major initiative to bring semblance of some order in the fiscal management in the state.
The government department, state development agencies and field executive agencies were in the habit of huge spending in the last quarter of the financial year. The unused funds were usually expended in the last two months February and March every year and most of such expenditure was incurred on unreasonable and unproductive works as the objective was only to exhaust the public money otherwise it would lapse.
The administration in the last two-three years tried to rein in such a rush-expenditure on procurement and discouraged the practice during the last month of the financial year to ensure that all procedures were complied with and there was no infructuous or wasteful expenditure.
Another positive change is the SGST collections as on December 2021 that has been 46 % higher than the corresponding period in the last year while IGST settlement has registered a growth of 35 % over the previous year in the same period.
Stamp collection is stated to be 87 % higher than the previous year over the same period even as MST collections have shown a growth of 46.41 Cr. It was further informed that Excise collections during the year are expected to exceed the last year's target by Rs 300 cr.
In the current year too, the administration has announced detailed austerity measures to promote fiscal discipline and ensure a balanced pace of expenditure. The Finance Department has also put a rider that in the last month of the current financial year, payments should be made only for the goods and services procured and for reimbursement of expenditure already incurred and not for new indents or advances in the last month.
A 10 per cent economy cut is imposed on Leave Travel Concessions, Telephone, Research and Survey and hospitality and sumptuary, fuel and other expenses out of the budget estimate 2021-22. Another good step was the complete ban on holding of meetings and conferences at private hotels and Government buildings should be utilized for holding of meetings and conferences instead to avoid such extravaganza.
