During the Assembly session during March, legislators cutting across party lines had spoken about the problems due to non-release of Legislators Local Area Development Fund and had urged Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa to release the money to enable them to take up development in their constituency.
It has now come to light that 73 members of the Legislative Assembly in 11 districts and 36 members of the Legislative Council in 16 districts have not proposed or taken up any work under the mandatory Tribal Sub-Plan (TSP) and Scheduled Caste Special Component Plan (SCP) for 2019-20. This is despite the dissatisfaction expressed by Mr. Yediyurappa in January over the progress of implementation of the two plans and asking for programmes to be speeded up, reveal documents on progress of Karnataka Legislators Local Area Development Scheme (KLLADS).
In fact, in January, the Chief Minister had pointed out that the overall progress in SCP and TSP were a dismal 15% and 9%, respectively, of the total fund allocated. Even by the end of the financial year (by March), 73 MLAs and 36 MLCs did not propose any programme under the plans, forcing the State administration to raise concern. Flagging the issue to the respective district Commissioners, Chief Secretary T.M. Vijay Bhaskar, in a communication to them in the last week of June 2020, pointed out that it was violation of law that no development work had been taken up under the two plans.
Under KLLADS, the legislators get an annual grant of ₹2 crore of which 24.12% has to be spent mandatorily on the welfare of Scheduled Castes (17.17 %) and Scheduled Tribes (6.95 %) under these two plans. Of the annual ₹600 crore coming into KLLADS, ₹110 crore has to be spent on SCP while ₹45 crore has to be spent on TSP.
‘Unfortunate’
A senior government official said: “It’s unfortunate that these legislators have not proposed programmes for the welfare of SC and STs especially in districts like Yadgir, Ballari and Raichur that have high SC/ST population. It also shows the mindset of the representatives.” The official said a mechanism had to be developed to see that the fund is spent, since the problem of non-expenditure repeats year on year. “Thankfully, the fund does not lapse if not spent,” he said.
Overall progress only around 48%
The overall progress made under KLLADS during the 2019-20 fiscal has been just about 48%. While ₹948 crore was available in KLLADS at the beginning of the financial year, the State government released ₹296 crore during the year taking the total amount in the Personal Deposit accounts of Deputy Commissioners in the State to ₹1,290 crore. While ₹618 crore was spent during the year, ₹668.93 crore still remains.
As many as 15,224 projects are yet to be completed and are more than two years old, which is also violation of the guidelines laid down for utilisation of the funds. Several Deputy Commissioners have justified the delay of over two years as the fund has been partly used for projects that get other funds. However, government sources said that several programmes are as old as 2008, and have not been efficiently monitored to be completed.
