After chairing several meetings of District Development Boards across the State, the Chief Minister has found that in many cases funds provided by the Centre for various Centrally sponsored schemes are lapsed for want of non-utilization. This is detrimental to the development of the state. We have been regularly drawing the attention of the Government to this discrepancy. From time to time, we also suggested measures how lapsing of funds can be avoided and overcome. Why so many of Centrally sponsored schemes end up in fiasco and abandonment is the question. The Chief Minister has issued clear and unambiguous instructions to the secretaries of all departments and the Deputy Commissioners to ensure 100 per cent utilization of funds provided by the Centre for various schemes. The Planning and Development Department, which is headed by the Chief Minister, has directed the Administrative Secretaries and the District Development Commissioners (DDCs) to prepare their roadmap of development well in advance and incur the expenditure accordingly so that majority of burden is not left for March, the last month of the financial years. The directive states that the District Development Commissioners have to prepare themselves well in advance for developmental works and expenditure so that “the March rush” is avoided, and funds are utilized will in time to prevent their lapse. The clear-cut message of the Chief Minister is “don’t let funds lapse in any case”.
This is all fine and welcome. However, we have to ask a question. Why the departments are not able to implement the schemes in time and bring them to completion in time when the policy planners attend to each smallest detail? Either the stakeholders have created some misconception or there is rank inefficiency and nepotism at work at the top levels. The law of the land must be galvanized into action in handling such elements severely. It is indeed a very good decision to ask the departments to initiate their input right now for the Government to present the annual budget in March next year. Along with this, the idea of entrusting the task of monitoring to the review committees for each district is a healthy improvement of entire implementation scheme. The DDCs would be the head of the review committee and it will have to not only monitor the progress of developmental schemes but also submit quarterly report to the Department of Planning and Development of the State on the progress of the developmental schemes.
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