SHIVANG SATYA GUPTA
Public money does not have to disappear into a fraudulent bank account for citizens to suffer a loss. It can also be spent on a facility that never delivers its intended service, publicity that does not reach the people it was meant to help, or programmes that continue alongside one another without an effective division of responsibilities.
Official audit records illustrate each of these failures. They identify wasteful expenditure on an electronics-testing centre, welfare-awareness funds used to promote other schemes, and skill-training activities continuing despite an agreed allocation of work between ministries. These are documented administrative failures—not merely objections to the number of government schemes.
Together, they raise a larger public-interest question: when government finances a department, separate implementing institutions and additional programme-management structures, what extra benefit does each layer deliver to the citizen?
The evidence does not establish that every autonomous institution or overlapping programme is wasteful. Nor does it provide a reliable national total of losses caused by “parallel governance”. It does, however, show why scrutiny must go beyond whether money was sanctioned and spent.
The public also needs to know whether the expenditure was necessary—and whether the promised service arrived.
Welfare money publicised other schemes while its intended outreach was missed
Another case brings the consequences closer to vulnerable households.
CAG’s performance audit of the National Social Assistance Programme, Report No. 10 of 2023, found that ₹2.83 crore earmarked for its information, education and communication activities was diverted to publicity for other Rural Development Ministry schemes.
The work orders mentioned PMAY-G and DDU-GKY, but not NSAP. Auditors also recorded payment without confirmation that the publicity work had been executed. Consequently, the planned effort to inform potential NSAP beneficiaries was not undertaken as envisaged. The ministry’s December 2022 response said the matter had been referred to its communication division.
This is not a finding that ₹2.83 crore was stolen, or that precisely that amount was deducted from individual pensions. It is a finding that an intended public service—helping potential beneficiaries learn about assistance—lost its earmarked funding to another activity.
For a welfare programme, information is part of delivery. Publicity for government generally is not interchangeable with information that helps an eligible person obtain a particular benefit.
Training continued across an agreed departmental boundary
Skill development provides a direct example of overlapping governmental work.
CAG’s Report No. 20 of 2025 records a September 2016 decision dividing textile-sector training responsibilities. PMKVY was to concentrate on spinning and weaving, while the Textiles Ministry covered handloom, khadi, knitting and processing.
Yet 1.48 lakh candidates received PMKVY training in those latter subsectors between November 2016 and February 2022. Samarth training data had also not been integrated into the Skill India Portal at the stage examined.
The Skill Development Ministry disputed that the decision prohibited it from conducting those courses. CAG maintained that the division intended to prevent duplication had not been followed. The report also records subsequent steps towards convergence.
The finding does not prove that these trainees were fictitious, received no benefit or were funded twice. It shows a failure to coordinate publicly financed efforts.
The question for citizens is whether money and training capacity were directed to unmet needs—or committed without a sufficiently clear picture of what another ministry was already providing.
Money released for better governance remained unused
An inspection of NITI Aayog’s 2023–24 accounts, conducted by the Director General of Audit in early 2025, examined the State Support Mission.
The mission supports new State Institutions for Transformation or the strengthening of existing planning departments. Its funding includes expert units, analytics, administration, studies and workshops, routed through the National Institute of Labour Economics Research and Development.
The inspection recorded no utilisation, as of 24 January 2025, of approximately ₹1.62 crore released to Karnataka and ₹1.42 crore to Puducherry in 2023–24. Utilisation was 4.23 per cent in Uttar Pradesh and 0.52 per cent in Assam. It also recorded pending utilisation certificates covering approximately ₹11.15 crore.
These were inspection observations, not findings of theft. Unspent money is not automatically an irrecoverable loss.
But the public-interest question is unavoidable: why was funding released when the intended activities were not ready to proceed?
For citizens, a release order is not a service. The relevant benefit begins when the funded capability actually improves public administration.
The current Budget shows why each delivery layer needs explaining
The 2026–27 Budget illustrates how several separately identified functions can sit inside one major programme.
Within Jal Jeevan Mission’s ₹67,670 crore Budget Estimate are provisions of ₹132 crore for the national water-and-sanitation institute, ₹19 crore for mission management, ₹18.50 crore for the National Project Management Unit, ₹27 crore for monitoring and evaluation, and ₹80 crore for information, education and communication. These components are already included in the mission total, not additional spending above it.
None of these allocations, by itself, establishes waste. Technical training, quality monitoring and community communication can be necessary for reliable water services. They are also budget estimates—not proof that the money has already been spent.
The question is whether their responsibilities are distinct, their costs proportionate and their results verifiable.
A household should not have to judge a water programme by its organisational chart. It should be able to judge it by whether safe water arrives reliably.
What ordinary people stand to lose
The cases point to different forms of public loss. They should not be added together and presented as one “scam amount”.
The first is expenditure without the intended service. Where a project fails, taxpayers bear its cost while the benefit used to justify that cost remains unavailable.
The second is the loss of a better alternative. Resources committed to an unnecessary facility or delivery arrangement cannot simultaneously strengthen an existing service. That does not establish how many scholarships, hospital beds or classrooms a particular sum would have financed; such claims require separate costing. It does establish the need to compare alternatives before approval.
The third is delay. Even where money remains recoverable, postponed implementation can postpone the benefit. The financial balance may survive while the intended opportunity is missed.
There is also a less visible cost that requires investigation: the time imposed on frontline institutions and citizens.
Where several programmes require the same school, local office or community organisation to organise similar events, submit repeated information or mobilise participants, the burden can extend beyond the scheme’s own accounts. Teachers’ time, staff time, travel and participants’ lost working hours are resources too.
This review has not quantified those burdens nationally. They should be measured rather than assumed to be free.
Activity is not the same as public benefit
A programme can report that it held workshops, registered participants, commissioned a portal and spent its allocation. Those statements may all be accurate without answering whether the underlying public problem improved.
For an employment initiative, the relevant question is whether participants gained useful skills and sustained work—not merely whether certificates were issued.
For an awareness campaign, it is whether the intended audience understood and acted on the information—not simply how many banners were printed.
For an institutional reform, it is whether decisions became better or services faster—not merely whether consultants were appointed and reports submitted.
Equally, absence of published outcome evidence is not proof of zero benefit. It is a reason to demand evaluation.
Preventive health, environmental protection and services for marginalised communities may require proactive outreach rather than waiting for people to request assistance. The correct test is not whether participation was entirely spontaneous. It is whether the intervention addressed a demonstrated need through an effective and proportionate method.
The solution is not indiscriminate closure
There is evidence of consolidation as well as fragmentation. The 2026–27 Social Justice and Empowerment budget notes state that PM-DAKSH has been merged with PM-Kaushal Vikas Yojana from that financial year. It would therefore be misleading to count PM-DAKSH as a separately funded continuing duplicate.
The reform objective should be to eliminate unnecessary duplication while preserving specialist capability and access for people who need it.
A single agency may sometimes deliver more efficiently than several departments. In other circumstances, an additional agency may merely introduce another approval, contract or reporting requirement.
Institutional form alone cannot settle the question. The comparison must be between costs, responsibilities, coverage and results.
Before approving another programme, explain the existing machinery
The findings support a practical reform agenda.
Every substantial new initiative should publish an assessment of the capacity already available: which department performs related work, what gap remains and why strengthening that department would not be sufficient.
Programme accounts should allow the public to follow funds from the ministry through implementing bodies and contractors to the delivered service. Where several schemes finance one institution, asset or activity, the funding should be reconciled so that legitimate co-financing can be distinguished from duplicate claims.
Evaluation should examine the full cost of delivery—including necessary administration—against the outcomes achieved. It should not reward a programme merely for spending its allocation.
Finally, audit findings should be followed by accessible action-taken records: what was corrected, what was recovered where appropriate, which responsibilities changed and whether the same failure recurred.
The existence of these audits demonstrates that oversight mechanisms do identify serious shortcomings. The question is whether their findings change decisions before further resources are committed.
Citizens need results, not more administrative layers
The evidence reviewed does not justify condemning all autonomous bodies or all government programmes. It justifies a sharper standard of accountability.
A programme should not be considered successful because it acquired a name, an office, a portal and an expenditure statement. Its justification lies in the additional public benefit it delivers.
Where a new structure produces no necessary improvement over existing machinery, its cost is not merely a departmental matter. It is a claim on resources that belong to the public.
Government should justify every additional layer by the benefit it adds—not merely by the budget it can spend.
