Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh has penned down a letter to all of RS MPs to recommend ways to better implement the scheme of MPLADS (Member of Parliament Local Area Development), on Thursday.
MPLADs is a scheme envisioned by the Government of India in 1993 to encourage parliamentarians for working towards ensuring developmental works in their constituencies. Ministry of Statistics and program implementation is overseeing its progress.
Harivansh stated numerous shortfalls in the scheme evaluation arising out of lack of transparency, unaccountability and stringent monitoring of the implementation of the scheme.
“Even after the first meeting of the committee called for on on-spot visits, the interaction with concerned authorities has been lacking,” said Harivansh. He also added that ” no such visit has been taken since 2012, therefore the committee itself has to take up the first visit in 2018 to North-eastern states and West Bengal.” He also mentioned about lack of coordination between authorities at different levels owing to which district authorities were found to be unaware of MPLADs guidelines.
The letter continued with committee listing down major problems as-
- Irregular inspection and monitoring of MPLAD works.
- Tardy disbursal of funds and sanctioning of work under MPLAD
- Irregular review meetings of MPLAD
- Lack of real-time data update on the Ministry’s web portal.
The letter further carried the details that despite the fact that the committee made many amends to the guidelines of the scheme, things have not practically improved. But even after this, The letter emphasized for re-visiting the guidelines of MPLAD scheme again.
Harivansh’s objective of sending out the letter is to draw MPs attention to the issues raised by various constitutional and legal institutions regarding the implementation of this scheme. For improving the situation better, he, therefore, asked for suggestions from MPs.