Scientific and environmental departments of the Central government have failed to spend funds allocated to them in 2016-17 and they returned ₹7,378 crore — nearly 12 per cent of their total budgetary allocation, the CAG report said.

While the various science and environment agencies of the Government of India received a total budgetary allocation of ₹62,935 crore in 2016-17, their total spending was only ₹55,557 crore.

The maximum unspent funds were reported by the Ministry of Water Resources and Ganga Rejuvenation, which returned ₹2,388.2 crore (27 per cent of its total annual budget), followed by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) which left ₹2,244 crore unspent, the report said. The Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) could not utilise 9.29 per cent of its budgetary allocation amounting to ₹1,867 crore, in the same year.

MNRE was also pulled up by the official auditor for not meeting its annual targets for most of the financial years since 2012-13, barring 2014-15. The shortfall in achievement of target was highest in 2016-17 at 58 per cent, it said. Even though the Ministry subsequently revised the target from 250 MW to 150 MW, its achievement still fell short by 29 per cent, the CAG said.

The auditor also castigated the Heavy Water Board, which is under DAE for incurring a wasteful expenditure of nearly ₹68 crore for delays in closing down its heavy water plants in Baroda in Gujarat and Talchar in Odisha. It also said there were delays in execution of 29 out 33 projects undertaken by the Board during this period.

Navigation system

It also wondered why the Department of Space has not been able to operationalise the indigenous satellite-based navigation system, Navik, despite spending ₹1,284 crore so far. The home-grown navigation system, approved in May 2006, was not yet ready due to delays in execution of contracts, deficient monitoring of the programme and inadequate follow-up, the CAG said.

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