Suspension Of MPLAD Funds & Its Implication On Democracy
- Nirmalkumar Mohandoss & Associates
- Nov 18, 2020
- 4 min read
"By suspending this scheme and taking away the funds, the ability of elected representatives to power and fund welfare schemes is taken away completely thus violating the basic tenets of a democracy."
MRINALINI DOKKA
Recently due to the Corona Virus Situation, the Government of India suspended the operation of the Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLAD) Scheme for two years (2020 and 2021), so that these funds could be used for the purpose of tackling the pandemic in the country.
What is the MPLAD Scheme?
The MPLAD scheme was started in 1993 with the idea of enabling Members of Parliament (MPs) to recommend required and necessary development works in their constituency, focusing on creation of durable community assets. Durable assets are those assets that can empower a community to be self sufficient at any given point of time.
Construction of office and residential buildings for public and private agencies, land acquisition or paying compensation, naming assets after individuals, grants or loans to state/central relief fund, assets for individual benefits, works on lands belonging to religious groups, execution of works in unauthorized colonies are not permitted under this scheme.
In this scheme, the budget allocated to each MP is 5 crores per annum.
This scheme, until 1994 was under the Ministry of Rural Development and Planning until it was transferred to the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation. Similar to this is the MLALAD Scheme where the funds are given to the MLAs to carry out recommendations for the necessary works. According to the guidelines of the MPLAD Scheme, the recommended works could also be carried out with the implementation of other programs such as Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, Sansad Aadarsh Gram Yojana, etc. The scheme is fully funded by the Government of India.
In individual/stand-alone projects of other central and state government structures, the MPLAD Scheme can be converged, given that such works of central/state government schemes are eligible under MPLADS. Similarly, funds from local authorities may also be pooled with MPLADS works. Funds from other scheme sources should be used first, wherever such pooling is achieved, and MPLADS funds should be published later, so that the MPLADS fund results in the project being completed.
It is necessary that these kinds of schemes should exist in a democracy because of the very fact that schemes like these help in upholding one of the main and most important features of the Democracy – Decentralization/Separation of powers. The MPLAD scheme does not just allocate funds but it also connects the people to their elected representatives. This scheme gives more scope to properly understand and focus on the needs of a particular community, therefore perfectly contributing to the proper working of a democracy.
Suspension of funds due to COVID-19.
The Government of India, in its attempt to combat the deadly virus and its effect decided to suspend the funds for the MPLAD Scheme. The suspension of these funds resulted in 7800 crores being available to Government. This turns out to be just 4.5% of the amount of relief announced under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY). This can prove to be immensely dangerous as diverting the funds would result in centralizing administration. By scrapping this scheme, the government is only allowing gross injustice to be met out to the people’s representatives. Until the government decided that the funds would be suspended, recommendations were made on a limited basis to use the funds for purchase of personal protection equipment and testing kits for those particular communities. By suspending this scheme, grass root level of solving problems in these communities will be adversely affected. Instead of completely diverting these funds, utilising the funds under limited recommendations for the purpose of fighting against corona would have served to be better as the focus would be more centered on the area that the elected representative is responsible for.
As a response to this very sudden move by the government, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor used the last bit of the funds given as a part of the MPLAD Scheme to buy 1000 rapid testing and 1000 Personal Protective equipment (PPE) kits in April 2020. He also went on to state that a consolidated fund being run by the government might prove to be problematic and that equal focus will not be delivered to all the 543 constituencies. To supplement this statement, he quoted the example of an instance where the center allocated only Rs.157 crores of the Disaster Response Mitigation Funds to Kerala, whereas Gujarat having 200 odd lesser cases than Kerala at that time had received Rs. 662 crores.
Abruptly stopping the scheme will drastically affect ongoing projects. For projects that include slow release of funds over the years, loss is inevitable. Like a domino effect this is going to affect the employed workers and push them to poverty. Villages are still going to suffer without the basic amenities that could have been available to them through this scheme, ultimately defeating the purpose of the MPLAD scheme. By suspending this scheme and taking away the funds, the ability of elected representatives to power and fund welfare schemes is taken away completely thus violating the basic tenets of a democracy.
(The author, MRINALINI DOKKA is our intern. She is currently pursuing her undergraduation at the Tamil Nadu National Law University.)
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