Parliamentary panel flags under-utilisation of funds given in pandemic
The Hindu
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Labour has raised concerns over the Labour and Employment Ministry missing physical targets for schemes and asked the Ministry to look into why it was unable to use funds allocated to it, particularly during the pandemic, in an optimal way.
In its report on the demand for grants for 2021-2022 that was presented in Parliament on Tuesday, the panel said: “The Committee also desires that the Ministry seriously look into the infrastructural or procedural constraints impeding optimal utilisation of funds especially made available during the pandemic (sic).” The report said there had been an increase in the allocation for the Ministry from ₹12,065.49 crore in the Budget Estimate (BE) to ₹13,719.56 crore in the Revised Estimate (RE) in 2020-2021 due to the launch of the Pradhan Mantri Gareeb Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY) during the pandemic to boost the economy.
On December 23, the newly elected office bearers of the Anna Nagar Towers Club, led by its president ‘Purasai’ B. Ranganathan, who is a former MLA, met with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. K. Stalin and conveyed their greetings. According to a press release, besides, ‘Purasai’ B. Ranganathan, the Anna Nagar Towers Club delegation that met Stalin at Anna Arivalayam, the DMK Party headquarters, included vice-president R. Sivakumar, secretary R. Muralibabu, joint secretary D. Manojkumar, treasurer K. Jayachandran and executive committee members N. D. Avinash, K. Kumar, N. R. Madhurakavi, K. Mohan, U. Niranjan, S. Parthasarathi, K. Rajasekar, S. Rajasekar, M. S. Ramesh, R. Satheesh, N. C. Venkatesan and K. Yuvaraj. Karthik Mohan, deputy secretary of DMK’s Information Technology Wing, was present on the occasion.












