The public works department (PWD) ended up surrendering close to Rs 9,000 crore back to the government, which is one-third of itsbudgetof Rs 27,140 crore during the 2022-23 fiscal year.
Though returning the unspent amount iscommonfor various government departments every financial year, in PWDs case the lapsed amount has gone up significantly instead of going down.
During the last fiscal year, PWD was able to exhaust Rs 8,914 crore out of Rs 27,140 crore which translates to 33% underutilisation. Before that during 2021-22 fiscal year out of Rs 23,562 crore that had been provisioned for strengthening and improving road Network, building new bridges and constructing important government buildings and structures, the department was unable to spend about Rs 7,000 crore (30% underutilisation). So, while the overall objective was to improve road connectivity to bring down the commute time between towns and cities, several works were delayed.