A year after Ladakh was turned into a Union Territory, the Centre-run administration could spend only 27% of its allocated budget in the fiscal year 2020-21, a report by a parliamentary panel has said.
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) attributed the “less expenditure” to short working seasons, unavailability of technical field staff, lack of labour and contractors and COVID-19.
The report tabled in Rajya Sabha on Friday, comes at a time when there is growing discontent in Ladakh as influential civil society groups have revived their demand to restore the newly created Union Territory’s Statehood. A complete shutdown of Ladakh has been announced on December 13.
MHA informed the Parliamentary Committee on Home Affairs that it has approached the UT of Jammu and Kashmir to depute officers and engineers to Ladakh for “efficiency and effectiveness in execution of the projects.”
The total budget for Ladakh in fiscal 2020-21 was ₹5,958 crore.
The two powerful civil society groups — the People’s Movement for Sixth Schedule for Ladakh, a group comprising all political parties and the influential Buddhist Association, and the Kargil Democratic Alliance are also demanding inclusion under the sixth schedule of the Constitution and filling up 12,000 vacancies.
The Sixth schedule protects tribal populations and provides autonomy to communities through creation of autonomous development councils which can frame laws on land, public health, agriculture etc. As of now ten autonomous councils exist in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram.
On August 5, 2019, Union Home Minister Amit Shah moved two bills in Rajya Sabha to revoke the special status of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Constitution and to downgrade and bifurcate the State into two Union Territoriess — J&K and Ladakh, the latter without a legislative Assembly. Ladakh has two councils — the LAHDC- Leh and Kargil to govern micro issues.
The 235th report on Action Taken by Government on recommendations contained in the 231st report on Demands for Grant (2020-21) of MHA tabled in the Parliament on Friday said “out of 236 villages (in Ladakh) only 172 villages had telecom infrastructure and “only 24 and 78 villages have 3G and 4G internet connectivity respectively.”
MHA informed the panel that Ladakh depends on labour coming from outside. “Due to lockdown and pandemic related restrictions on movement of labour, the execution of works was affected. As a result of this, the responses to the tenders were also affected,” MHA said.
It said that not enough technical field staff such as draftsmen, junior engineers with various State and Central executing agencies were posted in Ladakh during the period. The Ministry said construction agencies also took time to set up their offices in Ladakh.
The panel asked the MHA to increase sanctioning powers delegated to the engineering cadre and financial power of the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Councils (LAHDC).
“The Committee is aware that the UT of Ladakh was created last year and a separate budget allocation was made for its all-round development. But, the Committee is disappointed to note that in its first budgetary allocation, the UT of Ladakh has utilized just 27.42% of the allocation made in RE 2020-21. The Committee, therefore, recommends that the MHA should closely monitor the fund utilisation by the UT of Ladakh in the ensuing year and take necessary corrective steps,” the panel headed by Congress leader Anand Sharma said.
