The Centre has released Rs 66,745 crore or 64% of the Rs 1.05 trillion fifty-year interest-free capex loans budgeted in the revised estimate for states for the current financial year.
In the Budget presented on Thursday for 2024-25, the Centre cut the outlay by 19% from the budget estimate of Rs 1.3 trillion for the current financial year as some states failed to meet reforms-linked conditions. For next year, the Centre has made an outlay of Rs 1.3 trillion.
According to the data submitted by the finance ministry in the Lok Sabha on Monday, the top beneficiary states so far in FY24 are Uttar Pradesh Rs 12,780 crore, followed by Bihar Rs 6,136 crore, Rajasthan Rs 5,924 crore, Madhya Pradesh Rs 5,437 crore and West Bengal Rs 5,016 crore.
Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Punjab did not receive any funds from the liberal loan facility this year as these states did not fulfil the conditionalities or failed to fully spend the amounts allocated to them in the previous fiscal under the scheme.
“Funds (to these states) could not be released due to non-eligibility of the state under Part-I and due to high unspent balance of FY 2022-23, in case of other Parts,” Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary told Lom Sabha in a written reply.
According to the norms for the scheme, the first instalment of 66.6% was to be released to each state government on meeting three fiduciary conditions: adhering to branding norms for central schemes, sharing of scheme-wise spending data, and proof of deposit of the Centre’s share of the interest earned in Single Nodal Agency (SNA) account for each scheme.
The second instalment of untied funds was to be released on utilisation of 75% of the amount released in the first instalment and on meeting 45% of the total target fixed for capex by each state in FY24.