Rs. 4,000cr collected as Swachh Bharat cess lying unallotted, unutilized
On most transactions, you pay cesses for various sectors including education, road development and more. But have you wondered why you don't see much development despite government collecting massive amounts? A CAG report might have an answer: major portions of cesses haven't even been transferred to the relevant department. In case of Swachh Bharat, Rs. 4,000cr collected as cess remained outside its designated fund.
Details of the Swachh Bharat cess collected and spent
The government collects 0.5% Swachh Bharat cess on services. The amount is to be transferred to the non-lapsable Rashtriya Swachhta Kosh. But of the Rs. 16,400cr collected in the last two years, 25% never reached the fund; the remaining Rs. 12,400cr was utilized. Moreover, contrary to mandated 80:20 distribution among the Gramin-Urban programs, the entire amount was spent on Gramin while Urban got nothing.
The entire secondary and higher education cess remained unalloted!
Six major cesses showed similar trends, where total collection was Rs. 4L crore, but Rs. 1.81L crore (45%) wasn't even transferred. The entire Rs. 83,497cr collected as secondary and higher education cess remained unalloted! From Rs. 7,885cr collected as R&D cess, only Rs. 609cr was disbursed. Rs. 2.43L crore was collected for central road fund, but only Rs. 1.95L crore was transferred.
What happens to such unalloted money?
Till the time cesses are utilized or disbursed to the respective funds, they remain with the government's Consolidated Fund of India, for general expenditure of the government. This defeats the purpose for which they were collected in the first place.
