Revenue department spends Rs 3 lakh out of Rs 250 crore
The Communists in Kerala are facing a weird problem: They don’t know how to spend the allotted funds. None of the state's five-year plans has achieved targets in time. A lot of projects remain unfinished.
The Central Plan Monitoring Unit (CPMU), after reviewing the annual Plan implementation of Kerala, showed that the state utilised only Rs 1,816 crores till September out of a Rs 8,920-crore allocation for 2009-10 under the 11th Plan. The state spent only 21 per cent of the funds till September. Poor fund utilisation forced the government to fix targets on a quarterly basis. Yet, none of the quarters met the target. Surprisingly, the revenue department itself has spent only Rs 3 lakh from the allotted Rs 250 crore. Last year, the surface transport department spent 48 per cent of their funds during the half-year term, but this year, the figure tumbled down to 24 per cent. The public works department has fared miserably too. It has spent 50 per cent this year, a marginal improvement over last year’s 30 per cent.
As the state faces a piquant situation of a yawing gap between planning and implementation, the Centre and the state continue to trade charges. State ministers allege lack of Central assistance. But Union ministers blame the state government for not utilising the Central funds. Shockingly, Central assistance to the state following the tsunami still remains unused. The Union government had allotted Rs 1,148 crore to Kerala but the state could utilise only Rs 437.12 crore.
Senior journalist K. Kunhikannan, covering Assembly proceedings for more than three decades, told TSI: “People’s plan is a good idea, but partisan politics makes it impractical. Internal fighting in the ruling party is solely responsible for the delay. Official and political caucus get little chance in spending the funds within a short span of time.”
The state of Kerala had introduced People’s Plan in 1996 at the local bodies level during the rule of EMS Namboodiripad, the late CPI(M) leader and party ideologue. The idea was to implement budget proposals through participation of local people and local self governments with three-tier committees at the levels of the gram, block and zilla panchayats. But, now the raison d'etre of micro-level planning seems to have been lost in the politics of the time.
The Communists in Kerala are facing a weird problem: They don’t know how to spend the allotted funds. None of the state's five-year plans has achieved targets in time. A lot of projects remain unfinished.
The Central Plan Monitoring Unit (CPMU), after reviewing the annual Plan implementation of Kerala, showed that the state utilised only Rs 1,816 crores till September out of a Rs 8,920-crore allocation for 2009-10 under the 11th Plan. The state spent only 21 per cent of the funds till September. Poor fund utilisation forced the government to fix targets on a quarterly basis. Yet, none of the quarters met the target. Surprisingly, the revenue department itself has spent only Rs 3 lakh from the allotted Rs 250 crore. Last year, the surface transport department spent 48 per cent of their funds during the half-year term, but this year, the figure tumbled down to 24 per cent. The public works department has fared miserably too. It has spent 50 per cent this year, a marginal improvement over last year’s 30 per cent.
As the state faces a piquant situation of a yawing gap between planning and implementation, the Centre and the state continue to trade charges. State ministers allege lack of Central assistance. But Union ministers blame the state government for not utilising the Central funds. Shockingly, Central assistance to the state following the tsunami still remains unused. The Union government had allotted Rs 1,148 crore to Kerala but the state could utilise only Rs 437.12 crore.
Senior journalist K. Kunhikannan, covering Assembly proceedings for more than three decades, told TSI: “People’s plan is a good idea, but partisan politics makes it impractical. Internal fighting in the ruling party is solely responsible for the delay. Official and political caucus get little chance in spending the funds within a short span of time.”
The state of Kerala had introduced People’s Plan in 1996 at the local bodies level during the rule of EMS Namboodiripad, the late CPI(M) leader and party ideologue. The idea was to implement budget proposals through participation of local people and local self governments with three-tier committees at the levels of the gram, block and zilla panchayats. But, now the raison d'etre of micro-level planning seems to have been lost in the politics of the time.
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