By Sridhar Kumar
Elections are due in April but several MLAs from the city have not utilised funds meant for their constituency development under the Assembly Constituency Development Programme (ACDS).
Of the total 14 MLAs including one nominated MLA, 12 MLAs have not fully utilised their funds and nearly Rs 75 lakh funds are on the verge of getting lapsed.
Interestingly, Chandrayangutta MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi, who is also floor leader of MIM, has a balance of Rs 44.75 lakh unutilised funds.
Musheerabad MLA T Manemma (earlier Nayani Narasimha Reddy) has Rs 5.28 lakh balance, Malakpet MLA M Ranga Reddy has Rs 3.75 lakh and Karwan MLA Mohd Muqtada Khan has Rs 3.03 lakh balance funds for the past few months.
The nominated MLA Christine Lazares has a balance of Rs 12.75 lakh unutilised development fund.
“I am not aware that there are still some more funds pending to be utilised for my constituency. In fact, I had given proposals for Rs 16 lakh more than the Rs 50 lakh I am eligible for,” Malakpet MLA M Ranga Reddy said.
However, Akbaruddin Owaisi also said he had utilised all the funds.
As the tenure of the present assembly will expire soon, the funds meant for development of their constituencies will also lapse immediately. In fact, nearly Rs 1.61 crore, which was sanctioned during the year 2006-07, got lapsed as the funds were not utilised by the MLAs. Nearly Rs 37 lakh got lapsed in the Secunderabad assembly segment.
Interestingly two MLAs from MIM, Asifnagar MLA Mohd Moazam Khan and Yakutpura MLA Mumtaz Ahmed Khan utilised their funds completely. Another MLA from Secunderabad Cantonment G Sayanna has a balance of only Rs 5,000.
The state government sanctions Rs 50 lakh to each MLA to take up various development activities like laying of roads, providing drinking water facility, drainage, construction of school buildings and other infrastructure facilities. These funds are apart from routine development activities being taken up the state government.
ACDP funds were sanctioned for three years 2005-06, 2006-07 and 2007-08. Apart from the MLA funds, another Rs 50 lakh per segment was given to district incharge minister for two years. But in 2007-08, the amount Rs 50 lakh was diverted to Telangana Planning and Development Board (TP&DB) for proposing developmental works.
The works proposed by MLAs in their constituencies are taken up by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB), Quli Qutub Shah Urban Development Authority (QQSUDA), social welfare department and other departments. The district collector releases the amount as soon as the works are sanctioned.
If the MLAs do not propose any works, the funds lie with the district collector and finally get lapsed.
“Earlier there was an option for the MLAs to utilise funds sanctioned in the previous years in the next year during their tenure. But in August 2007, the state government put an end to it,’’ an official of Hyderabad collectorate said.
Officials said usually the elected representatives demand for more funds that too during the election year. However, surprisingly Rs 75,07,229 funds are still lying unutilised as per the accounts up to March 2 this year.
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