Political Diary
New Delhi, 26 March 2011
Den of Corruption
MPLADS OPEN LICENCE
TO LOOT
By Poonam I Kaushish
Chor-Chor Mausere
Bhai. This maxim
held sway as the curtain rang down on the shortest ever month-long Budget
session of Parliament totalling 23 sittings of both Houses on Friday last. Whereby,
our jan sevaks collectively agreed to
a massive increase in the MP Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS). Notwithstanding,
the din and fury of allegations and counter allegations over the CVC
controversy to the Wiki leaks exposure on the cash-for-votes scam. Underscoring
as never before that when gold speaks all tongues are silent!
The break-neck speed with which Finance Minister Pranab
Mukherjee announced a Rs 2,370-crore bonanza for MPs by raising allocations
under MPLADS from Rs 2 crore to Rs 5 crore, even as he expressed concern over
sky-rocketing prices and inflation was simply breathtaking. On the facetious
plea that as MLAs’ are getting Rs 2 crore it is only fair to strike a balance
by raising the fund available to MPs’. Who cares that it’s the aam aadmi’s hard earned money down the
political drain.
True, no one begrudges more funds to our Right Honourables
to help develop their constituencies better. The Supreme Court too upheld the
Constitutional validity of MPLADS in May 2010.
But the moot point is: Has the
scheme lived up to the expectations? Or has it turned into another ‘cash cow’
for our leaders?
Sadly, experience over the last 18 years since MPLADS was
launched in 1993 highlights that the scheme has created more controversies and
yielded little results. The sting operation in 2006 whereby seven MPs were
caught seeking bribes for doling out contracts under the MPLADS and various
Comptroller and Auditor-General (CAG) reports have pointed out that funds meant
for public good are siphoned off to greedy private pockets.
Most scandalously, two reports by the CAG in 1998 and 2001,
have strongly criticised the waste and the serious irregularities in the
implementation of the scheme. It found that in many States, funds were either misused,
lapsed, fictitious or the unspent money wasn’t returned. Astonishingly projects
not sanctioned by MPs were also executed.
Not only that. The CAG found that the District Collectors
not only reported inflated expenditure figures to the Ministry but also failed
to obtain utilisation certificates in respect of 11,915 works constituting 70
per cent of the works completed. And yet, the Ministry continued to release
funds without any correlation to their end use. Naturally, in a country which
breathes bribes wherein no work is done without palms being greased and ‘cuts’
paid what else can one expect.
In a sample audit of 106 constituencies, it was found that
of a total expenditure of Rs 265 crores reported by the collectors, Rs 82
crores (31 per cent) was not incurred at all. So deep is the malaise that India’s dalit messiah Mayawati brazenly directed
her MPs in 2003 to part with a part of the “commissions” they made from their
MPLADS for Party coffers. She said, “Arre
bhai sub miljul kar khao”. Adding,
that even the most honest MP makes Rs 5 lakh annually by sitting at home.
Remember, Trinamool’s
singer-turned-novice MP Kabir Suman who in a tell-all in 2009 revealed,
“Local leaders who already control Rs 400 crore of the panchayat samiti and zilla
parishad monies, want the funds and won’t let me spend Rs 1 crore of the Rs
2 crore I receive annually on installing 44 deep tube-wells in my
constituency.”
Think. An MP in connivance with the DM ensures a cut out of
every scheme recommended by inflating the cost and taking kickbacks from the
contractors. The babu is happy and he
makes the MP happier. A smart duo nets up to a maximum of Rs one crore of Rs 2
crore and an honest duo a minimum of Rs 50 lakhs. Asserted one, it is a
"kind of financial rehabilitation package for the political cadre."
For their “protection”, or for other “services”. Demonstrating the urgent need
to scrap the MPLADS.
Bribery and bungling apart, MPLADS has allowed legislators
to become part of the executive. According to Chairman of the National
Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution Justice Venkatachaliah,
the “scheme is inconsistent with the spirit of the Constitution and is against
the basic tenet of democracy as it subverts the principle of separation of
powers.
“To involve individual MPs to exercise any discretionary
power which is within the realm of the Union Executive, in spending about Rs
800 crore annually bypassing the Union Ministry and State Government or to ask
individual MPs to do something without the consent of the other MPs when all of
whom can function collectively only after due deliberation, appears to be
wholly outside the Constitution. There is no account, no accountability and no Parliamentary
audit,” he adds for good measure.
Equally damning is that it negates our federal structure. As
the NCRWC asserts there can be no place for a scheme that is inconsistent with
the spirit of federalism and which “treads into the areas of local Government
institutions.” According to former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, MPLADS
militates against the very process of decentralisation. “It is devised to
sabotage the emergence of panchayats,
which were autonomous of the weight-throwing MPs and MLAs".
In the present system,
MPs decide how to spend the money and funds are disbursed through the
district administration. Local bodies are neither consulted nor involved in the
details of execution despite Articles 243G and 243W entrusting local bodies
with the powers to prepare and implement plans for economic development and
social justice. Questionably, should MP’s be administering funds and
determining their specific resource allocation? Doesn’t it compromise the
oversight function that legislators ought to play? Who should the voter hold
accountable?
Think. Astoundingly, according to the 2001 audit report over
Rs 1,800 crore was “lying idle at that time and the interest earned on that
amount was Rs 107 crore, whereas the Central Government was paying an interest
of about Rs 200 crore on the borrowed funds”! Clearly the unutilized amount must have
increased manifold in the last 10 years given that till date the Central
Government has sanctioned a staggering Rs.14,070.52 crore cumulatively since the
MPLADS inception --- a sum that's higher than the annual Union elementary
education budget!
Also startling though the Planning Commission had put its
foot down to releasing funds for MPLADS in view of a resource crunch, the
Parliamentary Committee on MPLADS asked it to explore possibilities of pruning
outlays of some big schemes and instead give more funds for the scheme.
What next? Forget the increase, it is high time to have a
serious rethink on continuing the scandalous MPLADS. Which has made being an MP
the most lucrative and paying proposition. A Lok Sabha MP is elected for a
five-year term and a Rajya Sabha for six years. At Rs5 crore a year, a Lok
Sabha MP has Rs 25 crore at his disposal and his counterpart in the Rajya Sabha
Rs 30 crore. In our increasingly power
hai to money hai culture, this money is icing on their MP cake. Time to
apply brakes to the licence to loot and scoot.---- INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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