Andhra Pradesh lost ₹5,000 crore in Central funds across all sectors due to under-utilisation of the centrally sponsored scheme (CSS) during the 2025-26 financial year, raising serious concerns about the inefficiency and administrative functioning of the government departments. This is a government that is simultaneously borrowing money to fund its capital city construction, running up debts that future generations will repay, and leaving thousands of crores in Central funds underutilised.Andhra Pradesh Finance secretary D Ronald Rose explained that the Centre allocated Rs. 15,031 crore to the state for 2025-26 through 79 different schemes, out of which the Centre has released funds to the tune of Rs 11,465 crore, while the state could utilise only Rs 9,980 crore.
The Andhra Pradesh government’s health department has become the centre of public outrage. The Centre had allocated ₹1,947 crore to Andhra Pradesh under various health schemes for the fiscal 2025-26, with a deadline of March 31, 2026 for their utilisation. The state could utilise only ₹1,391 crore, leaving ₹557 crore unspent, which has subsequently lapsed. That is a 29% failure rate — nearly one rupee in every three allocated for Andhra Pradesh’s health sector, returned unused to the Centre while the state’s hospitals are understaffed, its drug regulatory system is dysfunctional, and its patients are dying in dialysis units without duty doctors.
Scheme by Scheme: A Record of Failure
It is a pattern of failure across every major health scheme, each one representing a specific category of healthcare that specific populations of Andhra Pradesh were depending on.
PM-Ayushman: 38% utilisation. The Pradhan Mantri Ayushman Bharat scheme — the flagship Central health insurance programme designed to provide free treatment to the country’s poorest citizens received ₹124 crore in Andhra Pradesh but spent only ₹63 crore of it. ₹102 crore lapsed. This means that poor families in AP who were entitled to free hospitalisation under one of India’s most important welfare schemes received less than half the coverage the Central government funded for them.
NAM: 44% utilisation. The National Ayush Mission, for which the state received ₹50 crore but spent only ₹22 crore. ₹28 crore lapsed. Which was largely intended to be utilised for Ayush Medical facilities, dispensaries and wellness units etc..
Human Resources: 57% utilisation. ₹136 crore meant for healthcare human resources — doctors, nurses, health workers, the very people whose absence is cited every time a scheme failed. The state pleads staff shortage to explain why the drug control department couldn’t test samples. It pleads doctor shortage to explain why the Kakinada dialysis unit ran without medical supervision for three months and then it leaves ₹136 crore earmarked for health human resources unspent.
DCA: 0% utilisation. The most damning figure in the entire table. The Drug Control Authority received zero rupees of its ₹2 crore allocation — not because the Centre did not release it, but because the state did not even collect it and spent zero rupees. The state drug control department failed to utilise even a single rupee out of the ₹2 crore allocated to it, resulting in zero per cent utilisation, raising concerns about the functioning of the regulatory system
The government borrows with one hand and returns grants with the other hand. Public health experts have pointed out that poor planning is a key reason behind the underutilisation. With proper planning and timely execution, utilisation of funds is not difficult, and some northern states have achieved nearly 100 per cent utilisation.
