UPA's rural schemes in a mess

Funds to the tune of Rs 7,700-cr may lapse

All is not well with the Congress-led UPA government’s rural development programmes, as slow pace of implementation might leave about Rs 8,300 crore of the total allocation made for the self-employment and village connectivity schemes in the 2012-13 budget.

A recent review of the UPA government’s rural development schemes revealed that about Rs 7,700 crore of the total allocation for the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana in the Budget Estimate for the current financial year might have to be surrendered due to tardy implementation of the programme. Similarly, about Rs 600 crore of the total allocation for the “Ajeevika” or the National Rural Livelihood Mission might also be surrendered.

A report of the Ministry of Rural Development noted that overall progress of the expenditure of the Department of Rural Development till last month was 33.73 per cent of the Budget Estimate, which was 3.17 per cent higher than expenses during the corresponding period in the last financial year.

However, it also revealed that the apparently satisfactory performance was largely due to the relatively better implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the UPA government’s flagship programme to provide livelihood security to millions of poor people in the villages around the world.

“However, if the releases under the MGNREGS are excluded, the progress of the expenditure would appear to be slow. The shortfall is mainly under NRLM and PMGSY,” a MoRD note after the review of the financial performances of the programmes pointed out.
While Rs 3,563.50 crore was earmarked for NRLM in the Budget Estimate of 2012-13, the allocation for PMGSY was Rs 21,699 crore.

In June 2011, Congress president Sonia Gandhi had formally launched NRLM, a redesigned version of the Swarnajayanti Grameen Swarojgar Yojana. The restructured NRLM sought to bring at least one member from each identified rural poor household, preferably a woman, within the Self Help Group network, in a time-bound manner.

The erstwhile Bharatiya Janata Party-led government had launched PMGSY in 2000. The fully-funded centrally sponsored scheme was intended to provide all-weather road-connectivity in rural areas.

The MoRD note pointed out that NRLM was still in “transition phase” and lack of preparedness by some states to implement it in accordance with the revised requirement, had slowed down implementation of the programme and the funds allocated for it might not be fully utilised.

“In case of PMGSY, the slow pace of expenditure is mainly due to large opening balances and lack of capacity of the state governments to implement the sanctioned projects,” the note added.