Rs 2,600 cr not utilised under MPLADS

The government today informed Parliament that over Rs 2,600 crore on funds sanctioned under the Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) is lying unspent.

"As reported by the district authorities in the monthly progress reports for period ending June 30, 2011, an amount of Rs 2,627.98 crore was lying unspent with the district authorities," Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Statistics and Programme Implementation Srikant Kumar Jena said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

Uttar Pradesh was at the top of the list with Rs 408.88 crore being unutilised, followed by Bihar (Rs 261.52 crore), Maharashtra (Rs 217.34 crore), West Bengal (Rs 185.22 crore), Andhra Pradesh (Rs 177.19 crore) and Karnataka (Rs 144.36 crore).

Jena said the government had approved the enhancement of the annual allocation of MPLADS fund from Rs 2 crore to Rs 5 crore for each Member of Parliament from this fiscal.

"From time to time, letters are written to state governments and district authorities to expedite completion of works and rendering of accounts," he said.

The minister said that NABARD Consultancy Services (NABCONS), an independent agency, had been engaged to conduct physical monitoring of works executed under MPLAD Scheme.

"NABCONS has conducted physical monitoring in 208 districts since 2007-08, based on 50 randomly selected works, in each of the districts in phased manner," he added.

"...NABCONS has reported that 86% of sample works had a positive impact on the social structure/social fabric of local community and there was no negative impact of any sort due to any project in different sectors," he said.

MPLADS is administered through a set of guidelines which specifies the authority and responsibility of the central government, the state/UT governments, the district authorities and the implementing authority.

In reply to another question in the Upper House of Parliament, Jena said that the government follows ceratin strict guildeline for compilation of data.

"Statistics by the government are collected and compiled strictly by following the standard definitions, methodology and procedures evolved in consultation with the experts in the field to provide the best possible estimates by using the data obtained at a given time point from the identified sources," he said.

He said the initial estimate undergoes revision subsequently in the light of a more comprehensive and updated data gathered from the data sources.

"As an integral part of the statistical system, expert committees on various subject matters of statistics constantly monitor the quality and performance of the system to ensure that the difference between the initial and final estimates of statistics is within acceptable range," Jena said.