First quarter of FY 2021-22 declared 'No Funds' period

Hyderabad: The second wave of Covid-19, which experts say is the result of the negligence of the people who had ignored Covid protocols and the governments too which had ignored strict implementation of norms, has now resulted in a situation halting the release of funds for capital investment during the first quarter of 2021-22 financial year.

The state government has declared the first quarter (April to June) as 'No Funds' period, for all the departments involved in the capital investment and development projects. The funds earmarked for different projects would be diverted to meet the health emergency.

All the Secretaries and HoDs (Head of Departments) have been asked to stop sending fund requirement proposals to the Finance department until June end, top officials said, adding that the steep fall in revenues and lockdown-2 had forced the government to alter the financial plans once again. In 2020-21 also, the government trimmed the annual outlay to Rs 1.45 lakh crore from Rs 1.82 lakh crore under the impact of the lockdown.

The present lockdown, officials said, had resulted in the steep fall in the revenues and the government is struggling hard to meet the expenses, mainly disbursal of salaries to the employees, outsourcing and Aasara pensions which required Rs 3,000 crore per month.

Officials said that they do not expect more than Rs 1,500 crore revenue generation in June. Hence, the only option before the government is to stop release of funds and use the available resources judiciously for the health sector which requires at least Rs 4,000 crore in a two-month period.

The government earmarked Rs 2,500 crore to buy nearly 4 crore doses of vaccines for which global tenders have been floated and another Rs 2,000 crore to provide treatment to patients afflicted with black fungus in government-run hospitals, and to supply free medical kits to corona positive persons at their doorstep.

Another major cause of worry for the government is that so far there has been no response from any foreign vaccine manufacturing company regarding the supply of vaccines. It is learnt that they have already tied up with other countries and are not able to supply vaccines to India immediately.