Reports from New Delhi said that Members of Parliament from Bihar may not be able to take development works like their colleagues in rest of the country.

At the rate of Rs five crore per year Bihar was now likely to get Rs 280 crore as it sends 56 MPs to Parliament––40 to Lok Sabha and 16 to Rajya Sabha. Till now the MPs used to get Rs two crore annually under the Local Area Development fund.

According to report of the Rs 1,616 crore allocated to Bihar so far, the state has spent only Rs
1,391 crore.Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar had written to Union Statistics and Programme Implementation minister Manohar Singh Gill in May last saying that the state government will not be able to implement the scheme unless the Centre creates a dedicated implementation machinery or give
six per cent of the fund for implementing the scheme.

It was also argued that the state has already abolished the MLA/MLC Local Area Development fund a few months back. Gill reportedly said in this regard that the Central government can not set up a public works department or any other agency to implement the scheme as implementing Central government schemes is responsibility of the state governments.

According to report the ministry is also not willing to provide six percent of the fund as administrative cost for its implementation as per the guidelines for MPLAD fund is only 0.5 per cent. Thus under the present circumstances it would be difficult to implement the scheme in Bihar.

Nitish’a argument is that MPLAD fund and MLA/MLC Local Area Development fund have increased corruption. But most of the MPs of his own party and partner BJP denounce this move of Nitish Kumar stating that corruption has increased manifold during his regime in the last five years. So why blame just MPLAD fund?

Rebel MP Mangani Lal Mandal termed the Bihar government’s decision as illegal as under the Constitutional framework the states have to implement the Central government schemes. If Bihar government’s logic is to be accepted then it should not implement any of the Central government schemes, he added.

The MPs and even MLAs and MLCs are particularly perturbed because while fund meant for the development of their constituencies have been scrapped mukhiyas are getting annually as high as Rs one crore for each panchayat.

Some times back state BJP president, Dr C P Thakur, who is also a Rajya Sabha member, expressed his reservation over the abolition of MPLAD fund. Even Nitish’s ardent admirers Shivanand Tiwari and Budheo Chowdhury are keeping their fingers crossed stating that the state and the central governments would soon find a way out.

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