As the financial year comes to an end, it is now clear that the funds earmarked under Karnataka Legislators Local Area Development (KLLAD) scheme has seen utilisation of just about 32%. While Hassan reported 67% progress this year, the highest among districts, Chamarajanagar with just 10% registered the poorest utilisation.
In the financial year 2019-20, just about 45 MLAs out of 225 and six MLCs out of 75 provided an action plan for fund utilisation, and this continued into this financial year, which was severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Just 53 MLAs and eight MLCs had so far presented an action plan.
While at the beginning of the year, ₹672 crore was available for works, taking the total to ₹1,282 crore. Till February this year, about ₹367 crore had been spent.
Under the KLLAD scheme, each of the 225 MLAs and 75 MLCs get ₹2 crore annually to take up local development, which amounts to about ₹600 crore in total.
“The issue of non-utilisation due to legislators’ disinterest was brought to the notice of the Planning Minister during a review meeting,” department sources said, adding that legislators harp on funds, but do not utilise it.
Old works
It has been proposed that as many as 15,815 works that are more than two years old be closed.
These works had been taken up at an estimated cost of ₹615 crore of which about ₹260 crore had been spent. According to the internal document circulated for the review meeting, the move is expected to save the government ₹359.62 crore.
“Several works have been going on for years and it was felt that it is better to stop them,” an official said.
The data shows that of the total 12,579 works taken up at an estimated cost of ₹502.51 crore from the MLA funds, ₹209 crore had been spent. Similarly, as many as 3,236 works have been taken up at an estimated cost of ₹113 crore from the MLC funds of which about ₹51 crore had been spent.
In all, about 50,000 works have been approved since 2014 at an estimated cost of around ₹2,000 crore.
Meanwhile, about ₹403 crore that had been provided for construction of anganwadi, hospitals and schools among others in 2017 remains unspent over the years.
The decision was taken to not start these works, an official said. Minister K.C. Narayan Gowda is learnt to have threatened to withdraw the funds for works that have not been started yet, despite being approved over two years ago.
