Thursday, May 15, 2003
Thursday, May 15, 2003 |
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By Aarti Dhar
The order, likely to adversely affect the Centre's ambitious poverty alleviation programmes and aggravate inter-State disparities, has already received stiff resistance from the Ministries of Health, Education and Rural Development with the Union Rural Development Minister already having written two strongly-worded letters to the Prime Minister seeking his intervention in reviewing the Finance Ministry's decision. The new method for disbursement of funds has come into effect from April 1, 2003 though no funds have been released to any State so far and all the money given has been part of drought relief measures. The idea for routing the funds through the State was mooted at the Chief Ministers' meeting held in October last year and the suggestion of the CMs was apparently accepted, despite a committee of the National Development Council, headed by the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, favouring continuation of the practice of direct transfer of funds to the implementing agencies. The worst-affected schemes by this order are the much-publicised `Sampoorna Gramin Swarozgar Yojana', `Swajaldhara' and `Hariyali' , inaugurated by the Prime Minister last year. The order violated the provisions of decentralisation and empowerment of Panchayati Raj institutions as enshrined in the Constitution. It would also hamper the pace of implementation of the schemes. The funds released to the State for Centrally-sponsored schemes would be utilised by the State Governments to meet the establishment expenses, since most States were reeling under acute financial crisis. The then Rural Development Minister wrote a letter to the Prime Minister in February this year seeking his intervention for withdrawing this order or at least review it after six months. When the Finance Ministry reiterated its decision in March this year, the Rural Development Minister shot off another letter to the Prime Minister in the first week of April but to no avail. At present, the Rural Development Ministry releases 70 per cent of its funds directly to the project implementing agencies such as the Panchayati Raj institutions and the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA). About 78 per cent of the funds reach the implementing agencies within a week, the next 15 per cent within 7 to 15 days and the remaining after 15 days. As against this, the funds transferred through the State Governments take somewhere between 3 and 6 months to reach the implementing agencies and a chunk of this fund comes at the fag end of the financial year which is likely to affect the pace of implementation of schemes. As per the latest directive, the State Governments have been asked to release the funds to the implementing agencies within three weeks. The Rural Development Ministry disburses Rs. 10,000 crores (including foodgrains) directly to the Panchayati Raj institutions under the Sampoorna Gramin Rozgar Yojana.
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