The Estimates Committee (India) is a committee of selected members of parliament, constituted by the Parliament of India (the Lok Sabha), for the purpose of scrutinising the functioning of government ministries and departments in terms of expenditure and utilisation of funds. It also suggests alternative policies in order to bring about efficiency and economy in administration. It also examines whether the finances are laid out within the limits of the policy implied in the estimates and also to suggest the form in which the estimates shall be presented to Parliament.[1] This committee along with the Public Accounts committee(PAC) and Committee on Public Undertakings (COPU) are the three financial standing committees of the Parliament of India.
The committee consists of thirtymembers, all elected from Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Parliament of India. The members are elected every year from amongst its members of the Lok Sabha, according to the principle of proportional representation by means of single transferable vote. The chairperson is appointed by the Lok Sabha speaker. The term of office of the members is one year. A minister is not eligible to become a member of the committee or continue to serve after appointment as a minister. There are no members from Rajya Sabha[2]
Although the committee existed pre-independence, post independence, it was established following directives by John Mathai. In his speech presenting the budget of 1950–51, Mathai outlined the role that had been envisaged, saying
As you, Sir, announced earlier in the session, we propose to ask the House to set up an Estimates Committee to scrutinize the expenditure of each Department of Government and of the Government as a whole. Personally I am looking forward to the work of the Estimates Committee when it is set up because I think in two directions it is going to exert a healthy influence upon the course of public expenditure. In the first place, the suggestions and criticisms which may be made by the Estimates Committee would, in my judgement, give a useful direction and guidance to the Government in the matter of regulating expenditure. Secondly I think the knowledge that the expenditure of Government and of the various Departments of Government would be examined in detail by an independent authority set up by the House would act as a deterrent to extravagance in public expenditure.
To report what economies, improvements in organisation, efficiency or administrative reform, consistent with the policy underlying the estimates may be effected
To suggest alternative policies in order to bring about efficiency and economy in administration
To examine whether the money is well laid out within the limits of the policy implied in the estimates
To suggest the form in which the estimates shall be presented to Parliament.
The committee from time to time selects the estimates pertaining to a ministry or department of the central government or such of the statutory and other bodies of the central government as may seem fit to the committee. The committee also examines matters of special interest which may arise in the course of its work or which are specially referred to it by the house or by the speaker.[4] The committee calls for preliminary materials from the relevant bodies in regard to the subjects selected for examination and also comments from non-officials connected with the subjects for the use of the members of the committee.
The committee noted in its May 2016 report that the river Ganga has been declared one of the ten most polluted rivers of the world. The committee outlined the gist of numerous recommendations as
In view of the incalculable damage caused to the "Nirmalta" and "Aviralta" of the river due to continued emptying of untreated sewage and industrial pollutants into the Ganga despite the efforts made under Ganga Action Plan –Iⅈ excessive use of chemical fertilizers in the Ganga basin leading to disposal of high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus which eventually drains into surface and subsurface water which is part of the Ganga river system and the multiplicity of authorities wanting in synergy, the Committee recommend that an overarching and empowered authority be set up for securing the 'nirmalta' and 'aviralta' and rejuvenation of the Ganga without further delay.
Indian activist G. D. Agrawal died at the age of 86, following a 15-week hunger strike aimed at protesting the state of the Ganges river. He was a former professor of environmental engineering at IIT Kanpur.[7]
The supreme court in 2016 took suo muto cognisance of reports of bad debts asking RBI to share publicly names of all defaulters who owe over ₹500 crore (equivalent to ₹669croreorUS$79million in 2023), since in 2015 the top ten public sector banks had written off ₹40,000 crore (equivalent to ₹540billionorUS$6.3billion in 2023).[8] As of December 2017, this toxic debt problem worsened as it touched ₹899,000 crore (equivalent to ₹12trillionorUS$140billion in 2023) with public sector banks(PSBs) accounting for over 86% of the pie roughly ₹777,000 crore (equivalent to ₹10trillionorUS$120billion in 2023)[9][10] In September 2018, the Joshi led committee sent notices to the coal and power ministries asking for explanations on mounting NPAs in the sectors.[11]
GDP norms issue (2018)
The committee noted in its report titled "Measuring growth, employment and income" that there are several parameters that need to be factored into the calculation of the GDP, like indicators to gauge the environmental resource decay and replenishment efforts made to compensate the loss concluding that - " The committee strongly recommends the government to have mechanisms by coming up with new measures of GDP estimation and statistical measurement of other socio-economic factors "[12][13]
As part of its oversight process the committee has published quite a number of reports over the course of its existence. The committee has published a total of 1118 reports from 1950 to 2018. Out of these, 624 are the original reports and 494 are reports on action taken by the government on corresponding reports of the committee.
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