Nearly 25 Per Cent Of Swachh Bharat Cess Collection Has Stayed Outside Dedicated Fund

About a quarter of the amount collected as part of the Swachh Bharat cess, at 0.5 per cent, has remained outside the dedicated fund, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has pointed out. According to a Times of India report, over Rs 4,000 crore of the Rs 16,400 crore has remained outside the non-lapsable Rashtriya Swachhta Kosh (RSK), where the total collection is meant to reside.

In addition, the resources in the RSK, Rs 12,400 crore, were meant to be distributed in the 80:20 ratio between Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin) and Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban), but the Drinking Water and Sanitation Ministry spent the amount wholly on the former, leaving no provision for the latter, the Times of India report quoted the CAG as having revealed.

Swachh Bharat is not even alone in having a share of its collected amount not reaching the dedicated fund from the government’s Consolidated Fund of India. This was found to be the case with six other major cesses as well, among them the secondary and higher education cess and the research and development (R&D) cess.

In case of the R&D cess, for instance, the government has collected Rs 7,885 crore in the 20 years since 1996-97. However, only Rs 609 crore has reportedly reached the Technology Development Board, the fund for the encouragement of indigenous R&D.

Underutilisation of the collected cesses is a problem that needs to be resolved if the many purposes of these cesses are to be fulfilled.