AS Arjun Munda completed two months in office as chief minister of Jharkhand this month, figures shown by three reports—two of them official—indicate he may ruin Jharkhand’s financial health even further. The state’s annual plan (2001-02) had shown a surplus of Rs 70.01 crore but the Comptroller and Auditor General’s latest report (2002-03) states that the state has incurred a deficit of Rs 572 crore because ‘‘the state’s revenue expenditure was 83 per cent of its net expenditure which was more than its net revenue receipts.’’ While the state has slipped from surplus to deficit in less than four years of its existence, Munda has approved a Rs 15.96 crore plan to give himself and his 11 Cabinet colleagues Ford Endeavour cars. Each of these will cost Rs 15 lakh. The joy ride continues. His government has also placed an order for 20 Tata Safaris for security personnel deployed for the chief minister and 19 other top officials. At a cost of Rs 31.79 lakh, each car will be air conditioned and bullet proof. Jharkhand has a population of 2.69 crore and 31,000 policemen. The ratio works out to roughly 1,000 policemen for one lakh people. But 14 VVIPs including the chief minister, his 11 Cabinet colleagues and the Governor, are guarded by 650 jawans of the state’s Special Task Force (STF). Their salary runs a bill of Rs 45 lakh every month. Falling index Published by the state planning development and programme implementation department, the Xth Five Year plan 2002-07 throws up some more dismal figures on Jharkhand • 54.13 per cent literacy rate against national average of 65.38 per cent • About 54 per cent of the state’s population lives below poverty line. National average: 26 per cent • Irrigated land eight per cent against the national average of 40 per cent ‘‘This means the state was spending Rs 3 lakh on the security of each of these VVIPs,’’ the report says. Munda is however defiant. ‘‘There is nothing wrong with it. In the globalised world, cars are fine,’’ he said. ‘‘We hope that the UPA government succeeds in passing the Money Laundering Bill soon so that Munda can be booked for misusing central funds,’’ says Congress leader Sudhir Kumar. Within the ruling coalition too there have been murmurs of protests. ‘‘The government should not have bought new cars. These will unnecessarily put an additional burden on the exchequer,’’ says BJP national vice president and former chief minister Babulal Marandi. BUT the state’s now set to take on additional burden. Jharkhand will soon get two new districts taking its total to 24. It had 18 districts when it became a state in November 2000. The additions to come—Khunti and Ramgarh—were sub-divisions in Ranchi and Hazaribagh districts respectively. The Delimitation Commission was expected to approve of this decision which has already received the go-ahead from the state cabinet. This, fear many will stretch the state’s finances. According to the CAG report, of the state’s total revenue receipt of Rs 4,937 crore in 2001-02, the non-plan expenditure was as much as Rs 3,547 crore. This figure further shot up to Rs 4,584 crore in 2002-03 even as plan expenditure on development fell from Rs 2,315 in 2001-02 to Rs 2,076 crore in 2002-03.
