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New Delhi: The Minority Affairs Ministry has been pulled up by a Parliamentary Standing Committee for returning unutilised funds, worth over Rs 587 crore, to the Centre in 2010-11.
The Standing Committee on Social Justice and Empowerment in its Twentieth report on the Minority Affairs Ministry noted that the quantum of surrendered funds was much lesser in previous years.
The Ministry had earlier returned much lesser funds to the Centre, Rs 33.63 crore and Rs 31.50 crore in 2008-09 and 2009-10, respectively.
Though the Committee conceded that the Ministry could not utilise funds meant for four new schemes which could not be launched, it questioned why money was not utilised in the ongoing schemes.
Funds for several ongoing schemes such as Multi-sectoral Development Programme for minority concentration districts under which Rs 462.26 crore was alloted, had been surrendered, it noted.
In addition to over Rs 24 crore in post matric scholarship scheme and Rs 9.3 crore meant for computerisation of Wakf Boards, funds amounting to over Rs 33 crore in pre matric scholarship scheme and over Rs 26 crore in merit-cum-means scholarship scheme remained unutilised.
The Ministry tried to explain by stating that in some of these schemes there had been a lack of adequate proposals from states and Union Territories including the North East region.
The Committee, however, was not satisfied by the reply and emphasised on better coordination with the states.
The Committee in its report recommended that the Ministry "take effective steps to sensitise the states about the importance of these schemes so as to achieve 100 per cent utilisation."
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