Patna, Nov. 21: Bihar has been denied of Rs 337 crore central funds meant for sanitation and drinking water because of the state government’s failure to spend the money allocated earlier by the Centre.

Bihar had unspent balance of Rs 246.75 crore at the beginning of the 2013-14 financial year. As only Rs 18.32 crore could be spent that fiscal, the state did not get funds afresh.

Stating that the state government could not utilise the funds made available by the central government in 2013-14 for sanitation and drinking water schemes, Union minister of state for sanitation and drinking water Ram Kripal Yadav told The Telegraph: “The state government could not spend the money provided by the Centre and that could be the reason behind Bihar figuring among the seven most under-performing states vis-à-vis sanitation and drinking water.”

The central government allocated Rs 337.33 crore to Bihar in the financial year 2014-15 for sanitation and drinking water schemes and projects but funds could not be released because of the high unspent balance, Yadav said, adding that Rs 359.17 crore and Rs 246.75 crore were the opening balance in 2013-14 and 2014-15, respectively.

Yadav said: “Against the target of construction of 12,13,617 individual household latrines, the state could construct 1,61,646 (13.32 per cent of the target). The state could construct just 5,076 out of 12,523 toilets in schools, while 1,437 out of 6,019 toilets were constructed in anganwadi kendras in 2013-14.”

The situation turned bad to worse in the first seven months (till October 2014) of 2014-15, he said.

Public health and engineering minister of the state Mahachandra Prasad Singh rejected the junior Union minister’s claims on the state’s failure in meeting the targets of toilet construction. “The allegations levelled on the state government are completely baseless because the Centre did not release the state’s share of Rs 300 crore in 2013-14 under the MNREGA scheme, under which toilets are constructed. Besides, we have distributed Rs 240 crore to the panchayats for the purpose but since we have not received the utilisation certificate, the amount is being shown as unspent balance,” said Singh, who heads the nodal department for construction of toilets for which Rs 12,000 has been given to each beneficiary.

Ram Kripal, however, cited one more example of unspent funds. He said the received Rs 5.73 crore for installation of solar energy-based dual pumps under the integrated action plan, meant to address the development of Maoist-hit districts. “But the state has not shown any progress in the project. The amount is being shown as unspent,” Ram Kripal said.

“We do not want to do any politics on the issue of Bihar’s development. We are just monitoring the schemes and projects and pointing out the shortcomings in the implementation. There would not be resource crunch for Bihar’s development. If the state government has any novel idea for better and effective implementation of the schemes, the Centre would gladly accept it,” Yadav said.