The Hindu : A fund for the needy... or the greedy?

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Sunday, Mar 16, 2003

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A fund for the needy... or the greedy?

The Mayawati tapes strengthen the suspicion that corruption is well entrenched in the MPLADS on which nearly 1,600 crores are spent each year, writes Neena Vyas.

VISIT ANY village in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar or Rajasthan and if you ask the local inhabitants whether their Member of Parliament has spent any money from his constituency fund on development, ten to one, the reply will be: "khadanja banwaya hai," and they will point to the uneven brick-paved road on which you may be standing.

And if you visit the same place next year, the chances are that the road will have returned to its pristine state — a mud track. The bricks get dislodged faster than they are laid, and often they are laid in haste when an election is round the corner.

Crores of rupees, nearly Rs.1,600 crores, two crores per MP — 545 in the Lok Sabha and 250 in the Rajya Sabha — are spent this way each year. And a lot of it is a total waste. Nothing worthwhile can be seen in most of the constituencies. But this does not mean that the money has all gone down the drain — small-time contractors, many of them well connected politically, make their fortunes. The recent Mayawati tapes telecast over various television channels have created a new controversy over the Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS), under which constituency funds are allotted. Were the tapes fake, or was, as it seemed, the Bahujan Samaj Party leader asking her party MPs and MLAs to part with some of the money they make as "commission'' from the spending of their constituency funds, and contribute to the party funds? She was heard on the tapes telling her MPs that even the most "honest'' among them gets Rs. 5 lakhs each year "sitting at home'' and that they should not keep all this money but share it with the party that has made them MPs. "Arre bhai, sub mut khao (don't eat all of it),'' Ms. Mayawati's voice boomed on the tapes.

There is a system in place and rules have been framed for spending the constituency fund. The money is not given directly to the elected representatives. The MP has to indicate what work he or she wants done and where.

It is the bureaucratic machinery, in this instance the District Collector, which has to float the tenders and allot the work to contractors and then pay out the money.

But this touching faith in the uprightness of the bureaucracy is hardly warranted. There is hardly any person in India who has not had to pay a bribe, or speed money of some kind or another to a Government `babu' for getting work done. Whether it is for getting a ration card, or speeding up the delivery of a passport, renewing a driving licence, registering property, or even getting a refund from the tax department, the ``babu's'' hands have to greased.

There is no doubt then that those who are inclined to make some quick money as "commission'' from their constituency funds have only to share the loot. The method is comparatively simple — there is over billing of the works done and the contractor refunds the excess amount, which can then be shared.

Apparently, the Comptroller and Auditor-General did make a sample check of how the scheme worked and gross irregularities were found. But why worry? Gross irregularities are found in almost every project executed by the Government. The malady is not specific to the MPLADS.

But what the Mayawati tapes did was to carry this simple fact of corruption to every household through television. They strengthened the suspicion that corruption is well entrenched in the MPLADS on which nearly 1,600 crores are spent each year.

A concerted effort by Opposition parties to get the matter inquired into by the Central Bureau of Investigation was resisted by the Government and, instead of showing keenness to clear the air — the Mayawati tapes have no doubt cast an aspersion on all the MPs, including the many honest among them — the entire issue has been swept under the carpet, swiftly and determinedly.

The Deputy Prime Minister, L. K. Advani, while making a statement in Parliament on the issue, seemed to have been guided by what Ms. Mayawati had to say through a letter. In short, his statement was based on what was told to him by the person against whom the serious allegation had been made through the tapes.

To summarise what Mr. Advani said: Ms. Mayawati was not the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh when the tapes were recorded, she was, in fact, describing the corrupt ways of the Samajwadi Party, the tapes had been edited, no MP had been named, and finally, in her letter she had counter-charged her political rival, the Samajwadi Party leader, Mulayam Singh Yadav, with misusing Government funds. Mr. Advani side-stepped the issue of alleged corruption by creating a new controversy on whether Ms. Mayawati's letter should or should not be tabled in Parliament.

Perhaps only Mr. Advani can explain how he came to the conclusion that since, at the time the tapes were recorded, Ms. Mayawati was not Chief Minister, the allegation that her party MPs took "commission" on the spending of constituency funds did not amount to corruption and, therefore, need not be probed.

Across several political parties, including the BJP, MPs were naturally upset and angry that the Government had made no effort to clear the air. They were aghast that the constituency fund was being seen by the public as a means for the MPs to enrich themselves.

Many were angered enough to demand the immediate scrapping of the fund. After all, the Mayawati tapes had implied that "commission'' was the norm rather than the exception.

Many felt that by not holding an inquiry, the Government had strengthened the doubts in the public mind. An inquiry would have brought out the facts against the guilty, but it would have also lifted the cloud of suspicion on others. After all, corrupt as the system is, there always are honourable exceptions.

However, despite the unsavoury controversy, there seems to be little doubt that the scheme itself, if properly implemented, could contribute towards equitable development of all districts in the country.

After all, the scheme makes available Rs. 2 crores for spending in each parliamentary constituency every year, irrespective of the party to which the MP belongs. The remote and politically unimportant constituencies in small States which send only a handful of MPs to Parliament and which may have remained untouched by development for decades could also hope to see an improvement in various basic facilities through the scheme. In a parliamentary system of democracy, there is no doubt that the constituency which happens to elect a Prime Minister or an important Cabinet Minister can hope to see some major projects coming its way, while those constituencies which have backbenchers representing them, or worse, a member of a small Opposition party with little clout, are often neglected. The MPLADS corrects this inequality, even if only marginally. Given the size of the parliamentary constituencies in this country, Rs. 2 crores each year is a pittance, but the money available to the elected representatives, if the constituency funds of the MLAs and corporators is added, is considerable.

Take Delhi for instance. Each MP has Rs. 2 crores available each year, each MLA (there are on an average 10 in each Lok Sabha constituency) also has a constituency fund of Rs. 2 crores a year, while each corporator (there are two in each Assembly segment) has a fund of Rs. 50 lakhs a year.

Together, the elected representatives between them can spend Rs. 23 crores each year in every parliamentary constituency. Over a five-year period, a handsome sum of Rs. 115 crores is available in each constituency, in addition to the development funds for specific Central and State Government projects or municipal corporation schemes.

There is no reason for any area or constituency to be totally neglected, irrespective of who they voted for.

Cutting across party lines, if the MPs of a State collectively decide to tackle one major problem or another, be it `pucca' buildings for schools, small but modern medical centres, clean drinking water or metalled road between villages and district headquarters, the constituency would not have to wait for the Government or the corporation or a slothful bureaucracy.

And the scheme could be tailor-made for the people, for theoretically, the elected representatives are expected to maintain direct contact with the people who could be involved in designing the scheme they want.

With the success of the scheme, the money made available could be increased. At one level, the MPLADS is akin to local self-governance.

The people elect an MP, the Government lets him decide how a certain sum of money is to be spent in his constituency, he works out a project in consultation with the people and then supervises its implementation.

Following the Gujarat earthquake, almost every MP from the State contributed his entire constituency fund for relief work, although that was not done when another calamity, the riots, hit the State. But the fact is that a substantial sum is available for emergency and crisis situations in the States, if the MPs care to cooperate.

There is a view that many MPs fritter away the funds on minor repairs and works such as `khadanjas,' which cannot last one rainy season. The argument they often use is that they cannot afford to spend all the money on one major project, as they have to spread the use of the fund throughout the constituency to please the maximum number of voters. The result is that nothing worthwhile gets done.

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