The Hindu : Front Page : Parties for MPLADS with better safeguards

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Dec 23, 2005

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Front Page

Parties for MPLADS with better safeguards

Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI : At a meeting convened by the Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee here on Thursday, most party leaders favoured retaining the controversial Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS), but with new and stringent safeguards.

Minister of Statistics and Programme Implementation Oscar Fernandes has been asked to coordinate with the MPLADS parliamentary committee, chaired by Prasanna Acharya of the Biju Janata Dal, to study the current guidelines and suggest new ones plugging loopholes, if any.

The Government view became clear when Parliamentary Affairs Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi felt the scheme should continue and be better regulated.

Copies of reports given

Party leaders attending the meeting were given copies of a report on MPLADS prepared by the former MP, Era Sezhian,as a study conducted by the Institute of Social Sciences, as well as copies of two reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. A letter written by the Speaker to Mr. Acharya suggesting that his committee study the report and Mr. Acharya's response to it were also circulated as background papers.

But most importantly, the meeting was held against the backdrop of a sting operation televised recently that showed several MPs allegedly haggling for commissions on projects to be implemented with MPLADS funds. Each MP gets Rs. 2 crore a year and he can decide how that money will be spent for development work in his constituency although it is executed by the bureaucracy.

By and large party leaders attending the meeting felt that some corrections were necessary, but the scheme itself should not be scrapped as suggested by some.

It is learnt that some MPs wanted the guidelines changed to enable them to place part of their constituency fund with the Prime Minister's Relief Fund and then recommend funds be given from this to needy patients from their constituencies.

It was pointed out that almost all MPs are faced with this problem and their constituents expect them to find funds to meet their medical expenses.

Leaders representing the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Telugu Desam Party were among those who opposed the continuation of MPLADS. Mr. Basudev Acharya (CPI-M) wanted stringent guidelines if the scheme were to continue; Mr. D.P. Yadav (RJD) said the scheme was "unconstitutional", while K. Yerrannaidu (TDP) later said that his party president was against the scheme.

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