Patna, Feb. 16: The chief minister area development scheme has proved to be a damp squib in the very first year of its launch. A huge chunk of the Rs 325 crore fund, earmarked for this scheme in the current financial year (2011-12), would be surrendered because of non-utilisation, senior government sources said.
The sources said the government would end up spending less than Rs 100 crore meant for the scheme within March 31, the close of financial year.
“Most of the districts have not yet started the tendering process for executing projects to be taken up under the scheme. With just about one-and-a-half months left in the current fiscal, the utilisation of funds is unlikely,” said the source, a high-ranking government official who spoke under cover of anonymity as he is not authorised to speak.
He said the government had not even completed the process of filling up all the posts of engineers and other officials who would man the Local Area Engineering Organisation, which has been set to execute the projects to be taken up under the chief minister’s development scheme.
The government has so far been able to post a little over 800 engineers in the LAEO against a requirement of around 1,800.
The chief minister’s scheme was introduced last year in place of the MLA/MLC local area development (LAD) fund under which legislators used to get Rs 1 crore every year for development of their respective constituencies.
The failure of the government to ensure utilisation of the money allocated under the scheme has given the Opposition an issue to take up in the coming session of the state legislature.
“The chief minister has been trying to send a message to the people of the state that the absence of LAD funds would not hamper development work. Now that it has become clear that the funds would rem ain unutilised this year, he owes an explanation to people and to the legislators. We will raise this issue on the floor of the House,” Leader of the Opposition Abdul Bari Siddiqui said.
Siddiqui said he had reservations against the scheme from the beginning.
“LAD was closed on the grounds that MLAs/MLCs were facing problems. Also, there was talk of alleged corruption in implementing the projects under the LAD scheme. The state government, instead of addressing the problems ailing the LAD, chose to do away with it and came up with a new scheme which in my opinion would not be able to address the corruption issue,” he said.
Siddiqui said the mechanism to be adopted in selection of projects was a move to humiliate public representatives as the committees to finalise them are headed by in-charge ministers with legislators just having the right to suggest what work should be carried out.
According to the CMADS norms, district-level committees, headed by the in-charge ministers, would select projects. The committee of a given district has MLAs of the Assembly segments in that district as well as the elected members of the Bihar Legislative Council. The nominated members of the Legislative Council would be members of the committee of the district where they vote. They can also select any one district in which they want to be a member of the district-level committee.
Some of the legislators of the ruling alliance appear to be disillusioned with the chief minister’s scheme. “When people ask me about the scheme, I avoid answering them because nothing substantial is visible on ground,” a BJP MLA from a north Bihar district said.
Those responsible for implementing the scheme, however, appeared confident about its success.
“A whole new structure is being set up for effective and efficient implementation of projects to be taken up under the scheme. Such things take time and it being the first year of the scheme, we had to set up many new things,” said Vijoy Prakash, principal secretary, planning and development, the department responsible for implementing the chief minister’s scheme.
He said even if some funds had to be surrendered this year, the situation would normalise from next year.
Prakash also said arrangements were being made to ensure corruption-free implementation of projects under the chief minister’s scheme. “Payment to contractors in stipulated time after submission of bills, uploading of picture from the field to keep tabs on development work and e-tendering for schemes worth more than Rs 25 lakh are some of the steps being taken to curb corruption,” he said.
