Nitish: Plugging the leak

Patna, Oct. 19: Members of Parliament from Bihar have virtually lost their right to use MPLADs fund through their handpicked men or agencies with the Centre accepting chief minister Nitish Kumar’s proposal to get the work done through competent agencies emerging from competitive bidding.

The Centre has also accepted Bihar’s proposal to bar the district magistrates from functioning as nodal officers to implement the schemes. The local area engineering organisation, which works under the planning and development department and which has been created to execute projects to be taken up under the chief minister’s area development scheme, is likely to be given the responsibility of executing those under MPLADS as well.

Soon after returning to power last year, Nitish had scrapped the local area fund for legislators. By getting the Centre’s nod to his proposal, the NDA government has virtually barred the lawmakers — be it legislators or MPs — from utilising the fund on their own volition.

Nitish had abolished the legislators’ fund in response to complaints about its misuse or misappropriation. He had also explained that the quality of the work suffered with legislators preferring their “favourite” men over the appropriate agencies in getting it done.

Though the MPs — unlike the Bihar legislators — do not stand stripped of their fund, they are virtually on the same pedestal as far as using their discretion in spending the amount is concerned.

Bihar sends 40 MPs to the Lok Sabha and 16 to the Rajya Sabha. According to the revised norms, which got Union cabinet approval in July this year, each MP would get Rs 5 crore every year for taking up development work in their respective constituencies.

Prior to the Centre accepting Bihar government’s proposal, the MPs had the discretion to select schemes of their choice. They also had the discretion to select a person or agency of their choice for executing this scheme.

The MPs appeared to have reconciled themselves to the new norms. “We are okay with the new system of awarding work through competitive bidding,” RJD MP Ram Kripal Yadav said.

He, however, maintained that the new system would consume 10 per cent of the fund as administrative cost, which could otherwise have been used for development work.

The details of the new system for implementation of MPLADS in Bihar was shared by Nitish in the first session of a review meeting today.

The meeting had been convened to discuss law and order, implementation of various welfare schemes and also to share the experiences of field officials gained during the course of implementation of various schemes.

“The chief minister also spoke at length on the changed role of DMs in which they would not be engaged directly in implementation of development schemes and are supposed to dedicate time to monitoring of works, ensure delivery of benefits of welfare schemes to people and coordinate the functioning of departments in districts,” cabinet coordination department principal secretary Ravi Kant said.

The Telegraph, on January 22 this year, had carried a report about the government’s plan of changing the role of DMs. A formal circular in this regard was issued by the state government in September.