Maharashtra MPs spending MPLAD funds miserly

After completing almost half of their term in 16th Lok Sabha, Maharashtra's Members of Parliament appear clueless at least in one aspect — how to utilise the Rs 720 crore MP local area development (MPLAD) funds for the betterment of the state.

As per the latest government statistics, state's Lok Sabha members have managed to spend only Rs 205 crore of the MPLAD funds out of their total entitlement of Rs 720 crore.

As against their entitlement of three years ( Rs 5 crore each per year), the centre has released only Rs 320 crore up to 1 July. However, more than 1/3 of this amount (Rs 123 crore) is still lying unused in the state. This is despite the fact that the state has suffered worst drought in two consecutive years and several constituencies have development backlog.

Kirit Somaiya, BJP MP of North East Mumbai, has spent only Rs 52 lakh. He remained unavailable for comments. Somaiya along with Prataprao Jadhav of Buldhana, who has spent just Rs 11 lakh till now, are at the bottom of the chart.

While Poonam Mahajan and Gajanan Kirtikar, who represent north central and north west Mumbai respectively, have spent 2/3 of their funds matching the state average, Arvind Sawant (42%), Gopal Shetty (35%), Rahul Shewale (52%) have dismal records.

Sawant blames red-tapism as the prime reason for his dismal show. "We can just recommend the works. The process after that is so time consuming that it defies the very purpose of this special fund. Government agencies don't trust each other and file moves from collector to MHADA. Besides, mandatory e-Tendering introduced by Maharashtra has further disrupted the speed," he said.

Sawant suggests that the MPLAD funds should not be allocated to MPs as they don't have much role to play. Shewale blames it on delayed billing process. "I have sanctioned works utilising all amount. It is not reflecting in the statistics only because billing process takes time," he said.

Shetty blames e-tendering and his fight against corruption for the poor show. "The government has revised the rule of awarding contract last year, making every work above ?3 lakh (now 10 lakh) to be given through e-tenders. This slowed down the process as government officials didn't take much interest because the process stopped their money-making opportunities. They used to usurp 30-40% of funds when I was the MLA. Half of my energy and time went into fighting with such corrupts," he said, adding political opponents and Lokayukta for blocking his ways over frivolous plaints.

Shetty's reason doesn't hold ground when his own counterparts in the state appear to be much smarter. For instance, Dalit MP from Latur Sunil Gaikwad has fully utilised his funds. Ramdas Tadas (Wardha) and Anant Geete (Raigad) are slightly behind him with 95% utilisation.

Two low spending MPs also claimed that their projects were "bigger" (and hence delayed) compared to those MPs who mainly spent on gutter and public toilets which require less funds and paper work.
Statistics also reveal that most MPs did approve projects as per their kitty limits, but red-tapism played as roadblock. District authorities which are supposed to execute the projects approved under MPLAD seem to have snail's pace in taking them ahead.

As per procedure, MPs recommend works to the district collector, who then sanctions eligible projects. Records say that most of the MPs do recommend enough works, however, only a few of them get materialised by the district authorities. For instance, 48 Maharashtra MPs have recommended works totalling ?638 crore in past two years but less than 30% of them get approved and completed.

Some enthusiastic MPs recommended works much beyond their spending limit. For instance, Nana Patole of Bhandara-Gondia has sanctioned projects worth ?60 crore. Raju Shetty of Hatkanangle (30 crore), Dilip Gandhi of Ahmednagar (25 crore) and Ashok Nete of Gadchiroli (20 crore) are not far behind.

MPs of some north east states and Tamil Nadu have better managed their funds utilising 80-98%. Gujarat and Chhattisgarh MPs touched 70% mark. However, Delhi MPs have the worst record in the country. They together spent only 40% of the available money, say the statistics.