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The number of extreme weather events are on the rise in India due to surging climate change; and so are allegations about misappropriation of funds allotted from Member of Parliament Local Area Development (MPLAD) to combat those disasters.
Several irregularities in the utilisation of funds disbursed under the MPLAD programme were highlighted by an MPLAD committee member during a recent meeting held in Delhi according to information available with this reporter; with a few others supporting the allegation.
The committee, made for fund monitoring of Rajya Sabha members, has 10 members, with representatives from most major political parties.
According to sources, Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP and committee member Santanu Sen pointed out a number of anomalies with MPLAD fund utilisation during the meeting.
He presented documentary evidence stating that the complete utilisation certificates of funds disbursed to combat natural disasters which had happened several years back, have still not been submitted.
Sen complained that even the complete utilisation certificate of about Rs 31.36 crore sent to Kerala, Tamil Nādu, Andhra Pradesh, Puducherry and Andaman and Nicobar after the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, 18 years back, had not been submitted.
Similarly, the certificate of about Rs 10.72 crore given to Bihar after the Kosi flood of 2008 has not been given.
He added that there was no certificate yet for Rs 16 crore of Rs 58.69 crore allotted to Uttarakhand after the mega disaster in 2013 that killed thousands.
“I cannot say anything in public. I have told what was needed to be told in the committee meeting,” Sen said, when asked about his complaints.
Committee Chairman and Deputy Chairman of Rajya Sabha, Harivansh Narayan Singh has asked the officials of the Union Ministry of Statistics and Plan Implementation to respond to the raised anomalies and sort out the issues.
“I am not supposed to discuss the proceedings of the meeting in the open,” Singh told this reporter.
SR Balasubramoniyan, an AIADMK Rajya Sabha MP from Tamil Nadu and member of the committee, also did not want to divulge anything on the issue. “Please ask the other members,” Akhilesh Prasad Singh, a Congress MP from Bihar, said.
Most of the members contacted — this reporter could connect with five out of 10 — did not want to be quoted. But the majority, in private, accepted that the issue was discussed at length.
Anomalies seem to have become a rule in MPLAD as similar mismatches are evident in one extreme weather event after another, be it Phailin in Odisha during 2013, Hudhud in 2014 or the Kerala floods in 2018.
“This is not a major issue. There may be some procedural lapses; I hope the officials will sort out the issue soon,” a senior committee member said on the condition of anonymity.
“I can clearly remember that we, Rajya Sabha MPs, were officially asked by the government to provide money from our MPLAD fund during disasters in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Puducherry. But we never received any utilisation certificate against the fund provided,” Pradip Bhattacharya, Congress MP from Rajya Sabha told this reporter; claiming that “the practice is a signal of corrupt practices”.