Survey reveals 82% works under MPLADS in rural areas: Govt

As much as 82 per cent of the works under Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) were sanctioned in the rural areas as per a sample survey, Parliament was informed today.
"Agriculture Finance Corporation (AFC) in its report concluded that about 82 per cent works were in rural areas and 18 per cent works were in the urban/semi-urban area," Statistics Minister V K Singh said in a written reply to Lok Sabha.
He said that the share of rural and urban area in aggregate cost was 78 per cent and 22 per cent respectively.
According to his statement in the House, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has undertaken third party physical monitoring of the MPLADS works in selected districts through independent agency.

In the last three years, 100 districts were covered in the physical monitoring wherein the independent monitoring agency AFC took a sample of total 5,615 works costing Rs 412 crore.
Meanwhile, in another written reply, Singh said: "It has been observed that the systematic constraints such as environmental clearances, statutory clearances, land related matters, fund constraints, security clearances, etc are the major reason for delay in the (infrastructure) projects, for which it is difficult to fix responsibility on any official(s)."
Replying to a query on any flaw in the method of calculating Gross Domestic Product (GDP), he said: "No. The existing method of compilation of GDP conforms to the concepts and definitions laid down under the UN system of National Accounts."

He said, however, "the estimate of GDP undergoes revision due to availability of updated data and data becoming available from additional sources".