Budget 2022: Once again Chandigarh PGI gets less than what it sought

Tribune News Service

Naina Mishra

Chandigarh, February 1

The Centre has again allocated lesser Budget than what was demanded by the PGI.

Against its demand of Rs2,200 crore, the institute has been allocated Rs1,840 crore in the Budget, which is 16 per cent lesser. For the fiscal 2021-22, the total allocation was Rs1,613.82 crore, which was 21.27 per cent less than what was demanded by the institute (Rs2,050 crore). An additional grant of Rs190 crore was received by the institute under the revised Budget.

Ministry allocates supplementary funds

From past experience, we can say the ministry has always allocated supplementary funds and there has not been a major impact on any ongoing project. Kumar Abhay, financial adviser of the PGI

However, this year’s Budget share is about Rs226 crore more than the Budget allocated in the previous fiscal.

In 2021, the Rajya Sabha Parliamentary Committee had observed that the PGI had been successful in utilising maximum sum of the Budget allocated to it for some years. The committee noted that against the projected demand of Rs2,150 crore for the year 2020-21, only Rs1,426.53 was allocated to the institute, which was less than the Budget Estimate of 2019-20.

Among its major projects, the PGI is in the process of constructing a high-end mother and child care centre, a neurosciences centre and satellite centres at Sangrur, Una and Ferozepur. The funds sanctioned under creation of capital assets (Rs350 crore) will be mainly used for setting up the mother and child care centre and the advanced neurosciences centre.

“Due to Covid-19, these projects got delayed. From our experiences, we can say that the Centre has always allocated supplementary funds and there has not been major impact on any ongoing project,” said Kumar Abhay, financial adviser, PGI.

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