Can’t implement MPLAD fund projects: Bihar to Centre

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said: “We have communicated to the Centre about it and are waiting for their response. We have requested them to make their own arrangements to get MPLAD fund works done.” Kumar said the state government had replaced the MLALAD fund with the CM Local Area Development Scheme under a body of engineers.

“This arrangement is different from the previous system in which district magistrates used to be the controlling authorities for MPLAD and MLALAD funds. It is now difficult to put in place a separate system for MPLAD when we have scrapped the MLA fund here,” said CM.

Asked if he was targeting the UPA government,Kumar said that the decision was purely taken because of technical constraints. “As we have introduced an open tendering system unlike MPLAD works,it would be all the more difficult to have a separate provision for any Central government scheme,” the CM said.

Kumar,however,said if the Centre still insisted that the state government should carry out MPLAD works,it (Centre) would have to bear all costs of any agency that may be engaged by the state government.

The Rural Works Department has written to the Union Rural Development Ministry about the government’s decision and asked it look for alternative arrangements from this financial year.

The decision had put the MPs in a piquant situation. In the Lok Sabha,Bihar has 40 MPs of which 32 are from the ruling NDA. The RJD has four MPs,followed by the Congress with two members. Two MPs are Independents. There are 16 Rajya Sabha MPs from Bihar.

An MP will get Rs 5 crore every year under the MPLAD fund from this year. JD(U) Rajya Sabha MP Ali Anwar welcomed the Bihar government’s decision,asking why should the state government bear the burden of Central government.