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State governments and Union Territories have utilised only 37 per cent of the funds approved for healthcare infrastructure development during the current financial year, Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Ashwini Kumar Choubey told Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.
The States and UTs have spent ₹3,549.1 crore out of a total allocation of ₹9,632.17 crore made for improving their public health care infrastructure and other facilities in rural areas in 2020-21, Choubey said while answering a question from BJP MP Neeraj Shekhar.
Spending
The spending in 2019-20 was around ₹5,896.31 crore, or close to 56 per cent of the approved ₹10,813.6 crore, Choubey said adding that a provisional allocation of about ₹11,931.28 crore has been made for the next fiscal. The poorest spenders were 10 high focus States, including Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Odisha. The bloc managed to utilise less than 25 per cent of approved total fund of ₹5,607.68 crore. Barring Odisha, all other high focus States fared poorly in spending. The utilisation of funds was dismal in almost all UTs too.
Non high-focus States
Non-high focus States, on the other hand, managed to spend 59 per cent of the funding provided during the year, which marred by the Covid-19 pandemic. Apart from south Indian States, Punjab, Haryana, Punjab and West Bengal belong to this category.
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