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Contents
Members
of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS), overview of the
effectiveness of this programme
Background:
The Member of Parliament Local
Area Development Scheme is one among the well intentioned programmes of the
government. The idea behind the
scheme is to ensure that development issues of each and every constituency in
the country is addressed through a budgetary allocation of Rs. 2.0 Cr for every
member of Parliament, being it the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha.
The scheme is very flexible and gives enough room to the people’s
representative to identify key issues of development which needs to be addressed
in her/his constituency.
Development
activities which can be addressed through this fund ranges from infrastructure
development such as roads, water facilities etc. to social sector issues such as
schools, hospitals, health centres etc.
The
scheme which came in to being in February 1994 is well designed and has a very
broad vision and objectives. However,
as is the case with many of the well intentioned schemes, the problem is with
its actual implementation.
The
idea for doing a study on the MPLADS programme came from a similar kind of study
which is being done in the US, which is popularly called the “Pork Barrel
Patrol”. Just a line or two about
the Pork Barrel Patrol. It is a
non-partisan group which comes out with a annual “Pig Book” giving details
of expenditure made by members of the congress for development and points out
outrageous expenditure either in terms of amount or in terms of the project
itself for which the amounts were spent.
However,
the analyses done by us is not so much in detail due to lack of available
information, however, it does give an overview of the expenditure patterns of
our Honourable Members of Parliament for the development sector.
Analyses in a Nutshell
Since 1994, up to March 2002, a total of Rs. 989080 Lacs or Rs. 98908 mn
has been sanctioned and released by the central government.
Out of the above sanctioned amount, a total of Rs. 736891 lacs or Rs.
73689.1 mn has been spent
This amounts to a total expenditure of 74.5 percent of allocated amounts.
Out of the total expenditure of Rs. 736891 lacs, the expenditure by
Members of the Rajya Sabha amounted to Rs. 207917.9 lacs while the Lok Sabha
MP’s spent Rs. 528973.1 lacs. In
terms of percentages, the members of Lok Sabha spent a total of 76.2 percent of
the amounts allocated to them, while the members of the Rajya Sabha spent 70.6
percent of their allocated resources.
Members of Parliament from Mizoram have utilised the amount allocated to
them in full, even exceeded their allocations, while West Bengal recorded the
least expenditure constituting to 63.2 percent.
Rajasthan, the state of our focus, recorded a total expenditure of 79.6
percent.
In Rajasthan, out of a total of 25 Lok Sabha and 11 Rajya Sabha Members
of Parliament, the percentages of expenditure has more or less remained the same
in terms of proportion spent. Most
of them have spent an average of 75-80 percent of the amount allocated for
development in their constituencies.
Some qualitative analyses was also made to asses the kind of development
issues which was addressed by them. This
study pertained to only Rajasthan and these data are primarily on the basis of
field survey collected.
By and large, maximum allocations has been made towards school buildings,
either new or development of existing school structure. The total amount spent for this purpose has ranged from 35
percent to 40 percent in most constituencies.
The next sector for maximum expenditure has been for providing drinking
water facilities. Drinking water
facilities has ranged from providing hand pumps, bore wells, community water
tanks, etc. The average expenditure recorded has been in the region of 20-25
percent.
Interestingly, health has not been the priority in major of the
constituencies. The expenditure
towards this sector has been in the region of around 10-15 percent.
Community centre and building of panchayat bhawans have also been one of
the major expenditure heads. However,
this is not common to all constituencies.
A major issue which needs to be highlighted is that almost all the
members of parliament have utilised fairly substantial sums of money to promote
girl child education. The amounts
have ranged from Rs. 10 lacs per annum to as much as 15 lacs per annum.
This constitutes to 10 percent of total allocated resources and as much
as 15 to 20 percent of the amounts spent by them.
Substantial amounts has also been spent on drought relief, however, from
the raw data available, it seems that bulk of the expenditure has only been for
short term and immediate relief and not much has been done towards long terms
drought relief measures. Very few
of the honourable members have given importance to issues related to setting up
of permanent fodder banks, community graze lands and so on.
Similarly, though water has been a prime issue to be addressed, long term
programmes such as rejuvenating traditional water bodies and tanks has not been
addressed at all. Similarly, issues
related to bio-diversity also remains to be in the back burner.
Among the peculiar trends observed, the following are noteworthy:
There has been continued expenditure in select villages, while certain
neglected villages continue to remain neglected.
There
is a trend for community based expenditure patterns, though the government of
India guidelines clearly states that
expenditure is not allowed.
In
some constituencies there is a clear system of cooperation amongst the members
of the parliament and the legislative assembly. It has been observed that in some select constituencies, both
the member of parliament and the member of the legislative assembly have joined
hands to address certain generic development issues, which is a good trend.
Interesting News Item an excerpt
Members
of the Lok Sabha have proved more adept in utilising funds under the MP Local
Area Development Scheme than members of the Rajya Sabha.
According to the fund utilisation figures for the period up to August
2001, Lok Sabha members had utilised over 70 percent of the funds released under
the scheme. Against this, Rajya
Sabha members had used 65.6 percent. On
the whole, MPs utilised 65.8 percent of the funds released under the scheme.
Among
the three newly created states, Chattisgarh’s performance was the best with a
fund utilisation rate of 74 percent.
Nominated
members of the Lok Sabha have used a lower proportion of funds when compared to
elected members.
8th May ’02,
Business Standard.
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The Project Team
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