MPs want more freedom to disburse funds to trusts

Members of Parliament want restrictions to be eased on their local area development scheme (MPLADS) to allow more funds to trusts and societies. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: May 12, 2013, 15:08:51 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Members of Parliament want restrictions to be eased on their local area development scheme (MPLADS) to allow more funds to trusts and societies.

They even suggested that their 'conflict of interest' ambit be reduced by redefining their 'family', so that more social organisations could benefit from their public-funded benevolence.

The MPs, who get Rs 5 crore every year for carrying out development works in their constituencies, are unhappy with the ministry of statistics and programme implementation for limiting sanction from the MP Local Area Development fund to a maximum of Rs 1 crore in a year for building assets in societies and trusts.

The condition was imposed earlier this year.

"The trusts and societies that are providing true service to the poor and the needy may be allowed to use MPLADS over and above the ceiling fixed by the ministry," said a parliamentary standing committee on MPLADS in its latest report.

The MPs also want that they be allowed to freely allocate unlimited money to trusts and societies, and the district authority - the project implementation body under MPLADs - should be responsible for checking the credentials of these organisations.

The committee also noted that it was disheartening that the ministry had not conducted any on-the-field study on the provisions related to societies and trusts while imposing the Rs 1-crore restriction.

The MPs also took offense at the ministry refusing to accept the suggestion of an earlier parliamentary committee to redefine the 'family' of an MP.

This was with respect to restrictions in MPLADS guidelines on allowing funding from the scheme to trusts and societies whose members are related to the MPs.

The committee had suggested that the in-laws of an MP or their family members not be included in the definition of the family.

"The existing definition of the family is inclusive and is necessary to save criticism of the scheme," the ministry said, in a submission to the committee while rejecting the committee's suggestion.

The parliamentary body also objected to the ministry's suggestion to the state governments to consider reputed non-government organisations (NGOs) as implementing agencies.

"On the one hand, the ministry is skeptical of the credibility of trusts and societies and on the other hand, it encourages engagement of NGOs as implementing agencies without prescribing proper qualifications and criteria for selection by the district authorities," the committee said, while asking the ministry to maintain a level playing field for all stakeholders in implementing the scheme.

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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