Don’t want curbs on MPLAD fund use,MPs write to govt

“The only restriction should be that proper accounts are kept of the expenditure and the work being done is of high quality,” says a letter written by BSP MP Vijay Bahadur Singh that bears signatures of 115 MPs from across the political spectrum. These include Mulayam Singh Yadav,P L Punia,Supriya Sule,Shatabdi Roy,A Owaisi,Rajeev Ranjan Singh,Ganga Charan Rajput and Francisco Sardinha.

These MPs go on to say that they were not government employees and therefore cannot be forced to adhere to the MPLAD guidelines issued from time to time. If the government cannot leave it to the MPs to decide how best to utilise this money,it would be better to take back the scheme itself,they say.

The immediate provocation for the letter is a circular issued in June this year,making some modifications in the MPLAD guidelines. The particular issue that has irked the MPs is the limit placed on the amount that can be donated to a society or trust. The new guideline says that a society or trust cannot receive more than Rs 25 lakh from MPLAD funds in the entire lifetime of that society or trust. Simultaneously,it also prohibits an MP from spending more than Rs 50 lakh in aggregate in a year from MPLAD funds on donations to societies or trusts.

In his letter,Vijay Bahadur Singh has pointed out that 70 per cent of the students at intermediate and graduation level in Uttar Pradesh were attending institutions run by private registered societies,which happened to be major beneficiaries of MPLAD funds. “The kind of restrictions that are now being put would ensure that MPLAD funds become as pointless as many of the government schemes,” the letter says.

“Therefore,it is requested that the guidelines that are issued from time to time are immediately withdrawn and the expenditure of MPLAD funds be left on the judgement of the MPs. Otherwise,the government should scrap the MPLAD scheme,” it says.

Incidentally,this is not the first time that MPs have called for the scrapping of MPLAD funds if their demands are not met. Earlier this year,Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had also made a similar remark. Complaining that his state did not have the resources — money or the staff — to monitor the different kinds of work being done through MPLAD money,he had urged the Centre to let district administrations claim as much as 6 per cent of these funds for meeting such expenses as monitoring,accounting and arranging for utilisation certificates for works being done through MPLAD funds.

The Centre had partially conceded this demand. While increasing the MPLAD money from Rs 2 crore to Rs 5 crore,the government had raised the limit for “administrative expenses” from 0.5 per cent to 2 per cent.