Swachh Bharat funds to UP hiked 700% before polls

Funding to other election bound states like Punjab and Uttarakhand also hiked by 925% on an average in 2016-17

The BJP’s surgical strikes are not just confined to the Line of Control or the Indian rupee. The government is also strategically funding development programmes more than it did in the past in India’s most electorally crucial state – Uttar Pradesh. 

Information obtained by Business Standard under the Right to Information (RTI) Act shows that funds allocated to UP under the Swacch Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Mission) rose more than seven times in 2016-17 as compared to last year. Despite UP being India’s most populous state and one of its relatively backward ones, it received less funds than Gujarat in 2015-16. However, with elections approaching, the government seemed to have shifted priorities towards UP. All of these funds were sanctioned by the Ministry of Drinking Water & Sanitation. 

In 2015-16, UP got Rs 103 crore from the central government under the Swacch Bharat Abhiyan. These funds were released through the Rashtriya Swacch Kosh, which is the account into which proceeds from the Swacch Bharat Cess are deposited. 

In 2016-17 (till November 2), the government massively hiked allocation to UP under the mission to Rs 834 crore – more than seven-fold jump as compared to last year. 
 

In 2015-16, states ruled by the BJP got a lion’s share of funds under the mission. Eight states in India are ruled by the BJP while seven are under the Congress. Regional parties govern the rest of them. RTI information shows that in 2015-16, the biggest beneficiary was Rajasthan with an allocation of Rs 509 crore. States like Bihar which are more populous and backward received just Rs 24 crore during the same period. West Bengal also received a paltry Rs 137 crore as opposed to other states like Gujarat. 

Moreover, the trend of releasing more funds for election bound states is not just limited to UP. The figures shared by the Finance Ministry with Business Standard shows that the benevolence towards Gujarat, a relatively developed state, has also increased this year. Gujarat, scheduled to go polls early next year, received Rs 651 crore in 2016-17, which is almost double the amount it received under the Clean India Mission last year. 

The Himalayan state of Uttarakhand which goes to the polls next year also saw a ten-fold jump in allocations to Rs 85 crore. Last year, the state had received just about Rs 8.5 crore. Business Standard had earlier reported that Uttarakhand had also received almost Rs 3 crore from donations to the fund made by Mata Amritanandmayi Math, a Kerala based spiritual organisation. 

Allocations to Punjab, which will go to polls early next year, also saw a massive jump. While in 2015-16, Punjab had received Rs 15 crore, the state has received Rs 148 crore till November this year.

The only aberration to this trend was the north eastern state of Manipur which received Rs 13 crore less under the mission in 2016-17 as compared to last year. 
 

The government imposes a cess of 0.5% on service tax to fund this cess. In the last fiscal, it collected  Rs 3900 crore from the cess of which it allocated two-thirds of the amount to various states.