| Arrested development
Bijoya Chakravarty, the Minister of State for Water Resources in the Atal Bihari Vajpayees Government at the Center was not exaggerating when she said that the North Eastern States have failed to take advantage of the various Central schemes. The Minister said despite the priority given by the Center to the North Eastern the Central schemes have been wasted by the States in the region.
The Minister should know; she is the lone representative from the North-East in the NDA regime at New Delhi. "The Vajpayee Government has virtually gone overboard to help the North-East. While the region has only 8.3 per cent of the country's population, it has been allocated 10 per cent of the funds from every department. Yet the State Governments in the region have failed to take advantage of this," the Minister said.
The claim that Vajpayee Government has gone overboard to help the North East is disputable, but it is a well known fact that most of the States in the North-East have failed to utilize the funds provided by the Center for various schemes. Most of the funds come as grants. Even if the funds are shown as utilized on paper in most cases they have been misutilized. The funds are either diverted or used in lining pockets of those in power.
Even if the funds are ready for release by the Centre they are being held back because the States could not provide utilization certificates on time for the next installment. A top ranking official in the Manipur Government recently admitted that the State Government was compelled to submit the utilization certificate of projects funded by the Center although the money was not spent on the projects in question. This, he explained, was necessary to secure the release of the second installment.
It is an open secret that funds meant for development works are used in paying salaries of the Government employees in Manipur as the State Government is in a financial mess. The Union Minister blamed the States for the present precarious fiscal situation in the region.
It may not be wrong to suggest that although the States are in a financial mess little effort is made to bring about a fiscal discipline. The States have jumbo size Ministries and a large Government workforce with little work to do. The fledgling Okram Ibobi Ministry has 34 members in the Council of Ministers including the Speaker.
As most of the funds are mismanaged these could not trickle down to the grassroots level and the actual beneficiaries. Not surprisingly the North-East remains the most backward region in the country with the problem of unemployment assuming alarming proportion.
As a result discontentment among the youths is growing. It will go a long way in improving the condition of the people in the North-East if the States try to extract maximum benefit from the non-lapsable pool of funds created by the Center. As long as the Sate Governments are corrupt and ineffective the region could never move forward and reap fruits of development.
(Courtesy: The Sangai Express)
|
Welcome! 
International
Features
