The State government has come out with a new programme — Siddu Sarakarada Nade Sevegala Kade (Siddaramaiah government towards providing services) — for utilising unspent fund of ₹406 crore sanctioned under the MLA and MLC Area Development Fund.
With the Legislative Assembly elections expected to be held in April-May, the government has decided to utilise available funds for taking development works by calling short-term tenders.
Minister for Science and Technology and Statistics M.R. Seetharam told presspersons on Thursday that funds would be utilised before March-end to repair schools, hospitals, anganwadis and other such services.
As of now, it was decided to utilise funds for repair works of 2,700 school buildings, 309 hospitals and 346 anganwadis across the State. The Deputy Commissioner of each district has been asked to call short-term tenders for expediting development works.
Mr. Seetharam said the Additional Deputy Commissioners would be appointed nodal officers for monitoring works once in 15 days.
Owing to various reasons such as delay in preparing action plans and approvals and unscientific project proposals, several legislators had not spent funds sanctioned for their constituencies. In fact, funds sanctioned for the welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes too have not been utilised properly with just 45% expenditure as on November-end.
