Chief Minister Narendra Modi sanctions crores for projects with polls in mind, but bureaucrats don’t know where to spend the moolah.
AHMEDABAD: A significant electoral year, an ambitious chief minister, frustrated babus given lots of money to spend for shotgun development in run up to polls - the makings of an action-packed narrative to be enacted in Gujarat.
Anticipating Assembly elections in nearly nine months, Chief Minister Narendra Modi had raised the cap on non-approved expenditure from Rs 10 crore to a whopping Rs 120 crore.
But as it turned out, the CM’s scheme of expediting development projects may not work after all. Babus feel that even if the sanction is granted for several schemes at their end, few will be implemented before the elections due in December. Sachivalay sources said although the move will cut down on delays in getting approval for projects, it would be difficult to implement them in the eight months left before the polls.
“With another ‘chintan shibir’ coming up in July, the secretaries will show in their presentations to the CM that they have cleared all projects and schemes, but what about implementation?” one bureaucrat said.
The other snag in utilising funds would be the monsoon, during which it would be difficult to carry out construction work. “Three months of monsoon have to be discounted from the time that we have to implement projects. So most projects that we clear will not be completed before the polls,” another secretary said.
Another roadblock is that even if the finance department’s approval has been done away with, many projects which deal with acquiring land or construction, get held up at the roads & buildings, revenue or urban development departments for approval.
“If I clear a project to start a temporary school, it will come to the R&B department which will have to allocate a building, where the file would get held up for months,” said a source.
However, the babus know better than to point the obvious to Modi for fear of being reprimanded. So, most are busy approving as many schemes to keep the CM happy. “Such a simplistic move to achieve glory can only evoke a simplistic response from us,” another said.
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