Bengaluru, Dec 16 (DHNS): Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday warned that he will not hesitate to take action against department heads if they fail to ensure effective implementation of budgetary programmes.

The chief minister, who chaired a high-level review meeting on implementation of budgetary programmes, is learnt to have said that many departments had failed to spend money earmarked in the budget. Progress is not up to the mark in areas such as drinking water, road development and SC/ST sub-plans.

Hardly any money has been spent on the development of Hyderabad-Karnataka region, he added. Chief Secretary Kaushik Mukherjee and almost all Additional Chief Secretaries were present in the daylong meeting. It was a closed-door meeting and the government did not brief the media about the outcome.

Of the Rs 1,000 crore earmarked for Hyderabad-Karnataka region in 2015-16 budget, only about Rs 30 crore has been spent till November. Of the Rs 11,772 crore set aside for the development of Scheduled Castes and Tribes, only Rs 2,248 crore has been utilised so far, according to sources.

Siddaramaiah, who was upset with slow pace of implementation of budgetary programmes, said the government will earn a bad name if the officials did not mend their style of functioning.

The department heads should bring it to the notice of the government if they face any hurdle in implementing any scheme and get them cleared at the earliest. No scheme should be allowed to suffer citing technical reasons, he learnt to have added.

The chief minister is learnt to have directed the chief secretary to prepare an action plan for the effective implementation of budgetary programmes in the remaining three and a half months of the fiscal year.