Kautilya could not think of more than 40 ways in which officials could cheat the government. But Surya Prakash’s book on the Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) suggests that our MPs know many more ways of milking the state.
The book examines the Scheme’s evolution and its less-than-satisfactory performance over the past two decades. The author builds his case using reports of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Kishore Chandra Deo Committee that examined the Star News-DIG sting operation (May 2005), which exposed corruption in MPLADS, and Parliamentary Committees on MPLADS. While exclusive reliance on government reports has its own drawbacks, it ensures that the inferences drawn by the author come straight from the horse’s mouth.
The book begins with clichéd descriptions of the Indian democracy, where the Parliament is as noisy and chaotic as the bazars and recourse to jugaad is commonplace. MPLADS, a scheme unheard of in other democracies, is then unconvincingly presented as yet another example of jugaad. Fortunately, after the first few pages, the author abandons jugaads and bazars and delves deep into the world of MPLADS, whose landscape is dotted with unfinished and shoddy projects. The story begins in the 1970s, when the Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) decided to give ₹Rs 50,000 annually to corporators for municipal works within their constituencies and Indira Gandhi delinked parliamentary and assembly elections.
In the mid-1980s, a BMC-like scheme was announced for Maharashtra’s legislators and was adopted by other states. This placed MPs at a comparative disadvantage. Ram Naik, an MP from Maharashtra, launched a campaign in 1990 demanding a similar scheme for parliamentarians. The beleaguered Rao government approved the scheme in 1993 with an upper limit of one crore per year, which was revised to two crore in 1998 and to five crore in 2011. (The upper limit is not linked to the size of electorate, constituency’s area and terrain, or inflation.) MPLADS was introduced after liberalisation amidst across-the-board cuts in government expenditure and had to be financed using funds meant for rural employment-generation schemes.
Surya Prakash argues that the delinking of parliamentary and assembly elections exposed MPs to public glare and generated an identity crisis. MPs could no longer hide behind assembly candidates who handled local issues that dominated elections, and were compelled to demonstrate their contribution to the constituency. (He overlooks the contribution of the emerging coalition politics to the delinking of elections, and of the growing political consciousness among backward communities to the pressure on MPs to deliver.)
MPs realised that people valued tangible local contribution rather than participation in legislative debates. But the local administration, the primary vehicle for implementing projects, was not beholden to MPs, particularly if their party was not in power. They tried to bridge the capacity-expectation gap by securing priority access to scarce resources — LPG connections, school seats, train tickets, telephones, scooters, cars, new currency notes and wristwatches — that could be redistributed among voters. This was barely sufficient to satisfy a few supporters and, in any case, liberalisation eliminated the scarcity of most goods. So, liberalisation added to the growing pressure on MPs to find newer means of enhancing visibility. And that is when MPLADS was introduced.
Critics challenged the Scheme on grounds of unconstitutionality as it purportedly violates the separation of powers between different wings and tiers of government. Even the CPI-M opposed the scheme. But, in 2010, the Supreme Court ruled that the Scheme is not repugnant to the Constitution.
MPLADS funds are supposed to be spent on creation of durable assets for public use; elaborate rules govern the various aspects of the Scheme. But, over the years, rules have been amended to accommodate all possible deviations as special cases. MPs use funds strategically ahead of elections resulting in uneven distribution of projects and rushed execution. But the lack of proper oversight has meant that MPs and district authorities are not held accountable for the systematic misuse of the Scheme, which costs the tax-payers about 4,000 crore a year. Unfortunately, some of the most backward areas have seen the most egregious violations of rules, and the share of SC/ST areas in MPLADS projects is way below their population share. These things do not bother our MPs, who do not mind disturbing the Parliament if their name is not ‘permanently and prominently’ displayed next to their project.
This is a well-written and informative book about an issue of interest to each one of us as voters, tax-payers and users of public infrastructure. The book can also be read as an account of the relentless struggle of our legislators for privileges unencumbered by responsibilities, and their utter disdain for rules. The book leaves us wondering who will guard the guardians.
Public Money
Private Agenda
A Surya Prakash
Rupa
2015, pp 287
395
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