A Parliamentary Standing Committee has said that NITI Aayog failed to spend even meagre Budget allocations that were made for its vital functions of research and monitoring of projects over the years.

In its report scrutinising the Planning Ministry’s 2018-19 Budgetary allocation, the Standing Committee said the Ministry got an allocation of Rs 339.65 crore for the year. Its Budget allocation for 2017-18 was Rs 252.52 crore, which was revised to Rs 279.79 crore. The expenditure during the previous year 2016-17 was Rs 225.38 crore.

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Although the Budgetary allocations had increased to an extent, the Committee noted that they were not sufficient for NITI Aayog’s increasing work-load. The Ministry of Planning “may impress upon the Government from time to time for higher grants keeping in view NITI’s urgent and emerging role,” the committee said.

The committee noted that the Development Monitoring and Evaluation Office (DMEO), established in 2015 to monitor programmes and initiatives of the Government, was further mandated to monitor the implementation of the Output Outcome Budget of the Government for 2017-18.

Although DMEO’s allocation was raised to Rs 18 crore during 2018-19, it had failed to utilise the allocated sums in previous years. Against the provision of Rs 15 crore up to January, 2018 during 2017-18, it had spent only Rs 9.90 crore. During 2016-17 too, DMEO had left Rs 2.81 crore unspent. “Such persistent underutilisation of budgetary allocation reflects poorly upon the financial management of the Ministry of Planning,” the committee remarked.

The committee headed by M Veerappa Moily noted with “dismay” that under the 2018-19 Budget, only Rs 10 lakh was allocated for creating awareness about the activities planned for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The allocation needs a “revisit for likely enhancement,” the committee said.

The budgetary allocation for research and study was only Rs 3.23 crore only. “The committee feel that in the light of NITI’s greater role as a think-tank, the allocation seems to be minuscule,” the report said.

The Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) and Self Employment and Talent Utilisation (SETU) launched in 2015-16 has been allocated Rs 200 crore during 2018-19.

The Committee said the “AIM including SETU” Scheme, meant to rapidly transform the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem in the country by setting up 600 Atal Tinkering Labs and supporting 21 Established Incubation Centres, too had failed to spend its allocations.

The Scheme spent Rs 74.43 crores lesser than the allocation during 2016-17 and Rs 52.58 crore lesser in 2017-18. While appreciating the “intent of the Government to foster ideas related to start-up culture in schools and colleges, they opine that a lot of ground needs to be covered for a persuasive fruition of such an enabling initiative.”