AHMEDABAD: A performance report of Gujarat legislators released by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Mahiti Adhikar Gujarat Pahel on Friday showed that close to 32% or about ₹325 crore of the MLAs local area development funds remain unspent as of March 31, 2022.
Under the MLA local area development fund scheme, every MLA can recommend or suggest developmental work worth ₹1.5 crore in their constituency. The report comes at a time when there are a few months left for the assembly session tenure to end with elections likely to be held in December this year.
The district planning board keeps the account of the funds. In the four years between 2017-18 and 2021-22, ₹1,004 crore was sanctioned, of which ₹850 crore was released and ₹677 crore spent.
“The unspent amount cannot be utilised once the term of the Gujarat Assembly ends this year. The expenditure at the end of March 2022 stood at about 67 per cent of the total sanctioned amount,” said Pankti Jog, state coordinator of the ADR, at a press conference.
The MLA fund data did not figure any amount for the year 2020-21. This is because the government did not allow MLAs to recommend use of the fund for 2020-21 and that the government had used it for fighting Covid-19, according to Jog.
{{/usCountry}}The MLA fund data did not figure any amount for the year 2020-21. This is because the government did not allow MLAs to recommend use of the fund for 2020-21 and that the government had used it for fighting Covid-19, according to Jog.
{{/usCountry}}The data was compiled through RTI requests filed with all district planning boards by the two organisations. A few districts gave information on compact discs, while others transferred the requests to the authorities that had received the funds, she said.
During the four years for which data is available, out of the 53,029 sanctioned work, 40,428 work (76%) were completed as on March 31, 2022. A total of 6,094 work could not be started despite getting sanctioned, with reasons not being known.
The report also shows that 77% of funds sanctioned for tribal areas were spent till March 2022 and ₹77 crore of MLA funds remained unspent.