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Demand to scrap MP, MLA local area schemes
BESIDES BREEDING corruption among the elected representatives of Parliament, the MP local area development scheme (MPLADS) was against the spirit and objective of the Constitution of India, and must be scrapped forthwith, said senior advocate and UP People?s Union for Civil Liberties president Ravi Kiran Jain, in Allahabad on Friday.
BESIDES BREEDING corruption among the elected representatives of Parliament, the MP local area development scheme (MPLADS) was against the spirit and objective of the Constitution of India, and must be scrapped forthwith, said senior advocate and UP People’s Union for Civil Liberties president Ravi Kiran Jain, in Allahabad on Friday.
He demanded that the MLA local area development scheme (MLALADS) must also be done away with for the same reason.
He said the PUCL had raised this issue in a PIL petition, which was under consideration of the Supreme Court.
Jain said the recent sting operation exposed how Parliamentarians could be bought over and how some of them were prone to accepting kickbacks for handing out contracts under the MPLADS.
The sting operation, Jain said, confirmed two points. First, the fund, instead of being judiciously used by Parliamentarians and legislators for development of
local areas, was sought towards strengthening their vote-banks. Secondly, in a majority of cases, it was easy to siphon off a good part of the money spent on projects through commissions.
Jain pointed out that the scandalous misuse of funds even figured in the annual reports of the comptroller and auditor general. With Rs 2 crore going annually to an MP, a staggering Rs 14,070 crore had been spent only under MPLADS since 1993, when it was launched, he said.
Pointing out how the MPLADS and MLALADS were violating the Constitution, Jain said sections IX and IXA incorporated in the Constitution in the early nineties, had unequivocally provided devolution of funds to the institutions of local-self government in rural and urban areas.
It was, therefore, a Constitutional mandate to bring about the development of local areas to financially competent panchayats and municipalities, Jain said.
He further said the Constitution provided a Central Finance Commission to determine devolution of funds to the States for their development projects.
Similarly, it provided an independent Finance Commission in every State to determine devolution of funds for the panchayats and municipalities in that State.
Thus, allocation of huge amounts of public money to MPs and MLAs for development of local areas, which was the Constitutional function of panchayats and municipalities, was violation of the Constitutional mandate, he added.
