PMO to decide on future of MPLADS

The ball on the future of MP Local Area Development scheme is now in the court of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: May 23, 2007, 19:53:23 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The ball on the future of MP Local Area Development scheme is now in the court of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Two government committees have taken a contradictory stand on the scheme. The Administrative Reforms Commission, headed by Congress leader Verrappa Moilly, wants the scheme to be scrapped. A Lok Sabha committee has sought an increase in funds for the scheme from Rs 2 crore to Rs 5 crore for a MP.

The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, that executes the scheme, recently forwarded the Lok Sabha committee report to the Prime Minister’s Office for final decision. "A Lok Sabha committee report seeking increase in MPLAD from Rs 2 to Rs 5 crore has been forwarded to PMO for directions," said the ministry’s secretary Pranab Sen.

The Lok Sabha committee was constituted after four MPs were caught on camera discussing commission for the contracts allocated under the scheme. The MPs have discretion of instructing district officials to spend Rs 2 crore on projects identified by them.

The committee found nothing wrong with the basic concept but wanted some changes in MPLAD guidelines to prohibit undertaking projects of NGOs or private organizations under the scheme and more transparency in execution of the projects.

Audit reports in 1998 and 2001 had stated that the scheme had ‘hardly served its objectives’ and said huge amounts was unspent. In about 70 per cent projects executed the utilisation certificates were not submitted, the audit report of 1998 said.

The Administrative Reforms Commission report submitted to the PM in 2006 reiterated the issue of corruption in MPLADs and conflict of legislative and executive interests for MPs, while recommending scrapping the scheme. Except Left Front, all major political parties want the scheme to continue.

In wake of these observations, the ministry officials want the PMO to decide on the matter. "The future of the scheme is being discussed at the highest level in the government. There are lot of views for and against the scheme," an official said. Till then, there may not be any forward movement on the recommendations of Lok Sabha committee on MPLADs.

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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