MPLAD fund set to increase to Rs 5 cr

The Centre is set to provide more flexibility in implementing the Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) for better utilisation with the Union Cabinet expected to increase the annual fund for MPs from Rs 2 crore to Rs 5 crore. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Jun 21, 2011, 01:58:47 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Centre is set to provide more flexibility in implementing the Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) for better utilisation with the Union Cabinet expected to increase the annual fund for MPs from Rs 2 crore to Rs 5 crore.

The ministry of statistics and programme implementation, the nodal agency for monitoring the scheme, has moved a Cabinet note for increase the allocation for each MP as per announcement made in the Union budget for 2011.

The big change the ministry is looking at making the scheme flexible. “There cannot be uniform condition…what is applicable in tribal areas cannot be correct for hill areas. The scheme has to as per the local needs of the states,” MS Gill, minister for statistics and programme implementation said.

The ministry will be seeking views of MPs and the state governments on what sort of flexibility should be provided in the MPLAD guidelines.

To improve monitoring of the scheme, the ministry has decided to conduct a study on efficacy of the scheme in 600 districts.

The ministry has also decided to increase the basket of projects that can be undertaken under the MPLADS as per new guidelines notified last week.

It includes a provision of allowing MPs to spend up to R10 lakh every year for the benefit of disabled people and another R10 lakh every year for welfare activities anywhere in the country.

Under the existing guidelines, the MPs are not allowed to spend outside their states areas except in case of disasters and no grant can be given to individuals.

The new guidelines, however, impose a restriction on MPs to sanction only up to R50 lakh annually for societies and trusts for community works.

There was no such limit in the earlier guidelines.

Another restriction imposed is that MPs will have to sanction money for projects costing R1 lakh except in case of hand pumps, solar electric pumps and computers.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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