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| Law related to CD fund needs to be amended | | | On one hand legislators besides members of the Lok Sabha have been clamouring for increase in the Constituency Development Fund(CDF),on the other these very legislators have not been able to ensure full utilization of the CDF.As far as Jammu and Kashmir state is concerned majority of legislators have had a poor record in ensuring maximum utilization of the CDF. It was because of prolonged demand of legislators that the CDF was raised from Rs.50 lakhs to Rs. one crore a year and about eight years ago the amount was Rs.35 lakhs. But despite the fact that the development schemes have been hit hard because of paucity of resources the situation would have been better had the legislators saw to it that they were able to carry out maximum utilization of development fund. It has to be seen by the MLAs, MLCs and MPs that their job does not end with the sanctioning of the amount out of the CDF for various development projects because it has been experienced that even after release of funds the implementation of the schemes has remained quite tardy and poor. Here the legislators have to ensure that whatever funds they had released were utilized to the maximum satisfaction of people.
However, the utilisation of funds by MPs, MLAs and MLCs in Jammu and Kashmir has remained dismal in the last four years. Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather has utilised minimum funds (17.76%) under the Constituency Development Fund (CDF), while Chief Minister Omar Abdullah utilised just 42.37 per cent out of the total of Rs 4.50 crore CDF since 2010.The state government, however, said the funds to the tune of Rs 795.06 crore had been released by legislators and members of Parliament of the state for various kinds of development works in the state during the last three fiscals and current financial year under the CDF."Against the released funds, an amount of Rs 603.38 crore, which is nearly 76 per cent of the released funds, was utilised for various development works in various constituencies of the state during the period," it said. At present, the MLAs are entitled to Rs 1.5 crore CDF each in five years, which was earlier just Rs 35 lakh. The amount does not lapse. The development works identified by an MLA for funding out of his CDF are executed as per the fund flow approved by the MLA.
As per the Government report the amount released by 24 MLAs and MLCs, including the Chief Minister and senior Cabinet ministers, out of their CDF, was below 50 per cent. The Finance Minister released an amount of Rs 4.5 crore from 2010-11 to 2013-14, but an amount of Rs 79.90 lakh was utilised, which was lowest in the list of fund utilisation. Infact since under rules the CDF do not lapse the legislators take it easy and they know that the funds may be utilized later on. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah released an amount of Rs.4.5 crores, but only Rs 1.9 crore was utilised in the period. Another senior Cabinet Minister Ali Mohammad Sagar, who is holding the charge of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Department, released Rs 4.06 crore under the CDF, but an amount of just Rs 1.3 crore was utilised, which was just 33 per cent. Barring a few cases of MLCs where the percentage of funds utilisation was 100 per cent and above, the utilisation of funds released by MLAs and MPs ranged between 40 and 80 per cent. The Government should amend the law providing for grant of CDF so that those legislators who get failed to ensure full utilization of CDF were penalized. And AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal was right when, during the 49-day rule,he had decided that the CDF should be spent by the people of each constituency. Now that Kejriwal has resigned Delhi may see legislators getting back the CDF. But some restrictions need to be imposed so that CDF was fully utilized on various development project. |
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