Southern States - Kerala

Sankaranarayanan refutes VS charges

By Our Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM MAY 21. The Finance Minister, K. Sankaranarayanan, refuted the criticism of the Leader of the Opposition, V. S. Achuthanandan, that the Government was weakening the process of decentralisation.

The Finance Minister said in a statement that the UDF Government was strengthening decentralisation and decentralised planning by making higher allocations to local self-Governments.

Mr. Sankaranarayanan recalled that the previous Government had allocated only 30.5 per cent of the Annual Plan to local self-Governments whereas the present Government had allocated 33.3 per cent of the current year's Annual Plan to them.

He said that the LDF Government, which had drawn up five annual Plans and a Five Year Plan, could not solve any of the basic problems of the State. Moreover, the People's Planning process ran into trouble during the second half of the LDF administration.

During 2000-2001, the Plan expenditure dropped from 18 per cent to 16 per cent against the revenue expenditure. The last instalment of funds to the local self-Governments were not released. Besides, they could not encash cheques on account of treasury restrictions.

He continued that the UDF Government was committed to decentralisation. The Government had only corrected politicisation of the planning process while trying to streamline the process. The expert committees were dissolved owing to politicisation. The Government policy was to give full freedom to the local self-Governments in drawing up their developmental programmes.

The Finance Minister recalled that he had allocated Rs. 1,237.50 crores in the revised Budget last year to local self-Governments. Besides, the allocations were released in full during 2001-2002. Cheques issued up to March 31, 2002 were cleared. This was in sharp contrast to the approach of the previous Government. Mr. Sankaranarayanan said that the MLAs' Development Fund had been formed with the objective of balanced development of all the 140 constituencies.

This was not intended to hinder decentralised planning but to strengthen it with public participation.

He said that the Government proposed to strengthen and institutionalise decentralisation during the Tenth Plan. The emphasis was on improving the quality of local-level planning, efficiency of implementation and charting out a role for the local self-Governments in economic development. Attempts to hide these truths would only have a deleterious effect on decentralisation, he added.

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