Environment Ministry rapped for not using funds fully

The Centre and more specifically the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change is not putting money where its mouth is — literally.

While the Ministry, led by Minister of State (Independent Charge) Prakash Javadekar, has fought for climate justice at international forums and made big targets for curbing climate change, the Ministry’s allocation of funds to, and expenditure of these funds on climate change tell a different story.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment and Forests, has criticised the Ministry for falling far short of targets. The report noted that by December 31, 2015, the Ministry utilised a meagre 11 per cent (₹14.53 crore) of the total ₹136.79 crore allocated to the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC), one of the most crucial programmes of the Ministry.

“The Committee had in its 254th Report also highlighted the gross under-utilisation of funds under this scheme during the years 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2014-15. The performance of the Ministry in 2015-16 has been no better. The Committee is at a loss to understand as to how a Ministry which is not even able to make use of a fraction of the funds made available for Climate Change Action Programme, would undertake additional interventions in the requisite areas of the programme,” the report said.

The Ministry, overall, has been an underperformer in the 2015-16 fiscal. At a time when pollution in the country is an international concern, up until December 31, 2015, the Ministry utilised only about 35 per cent of the allocation for its scheme of Assistance for Abatement of Pollution. It failed to achieve its targets of setting up ambient air quality monitoring stations and noise monitoring stations.

Even the allocations under the already under funded research and development scheme were not fully utilised.

The committee noted its “disappointment” and “displeasure” on almost every sector under the Ministry, including Forest and Zoological surveys of India, which both missed their targets, biosphere reserves (where only 50 per cent of the funds were utilised), National River Conservation Plan and wildlife management. It said, “The performance of the department in terms of utilization of funds leaves much to be desired.”

“The budgetary allocation of the Ministry is considerably low compared to the projections made by the Ministry for the 12th Plan period. However, the Ministry is not even able to fully utilise the funds which are made available to it and also falls short of achieving the physical targets set or otherwise,” the report said.

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