No money given for 2 yrs by MHA due to huge unspent balance
Slackness deprives border areas of developmental activities
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Mar 24: Much to the disappointment of the border dwellers, the Jammu and Kashmir has failed to fully utilize the funds sanctioned by the Government of India under Border Area Development Programme (BADP) during the past several years. Due to huge unspent balance lying with the Government of the Union Territory, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs has not released even a single penny during the past two consecutive years.
This can be gauged from the figures of Ministry of Home Affairs, the copy of which is available with EXCELSIOR. During the financial year 2018-19, an amount of Rs 84 crore was released to the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir and against this, funds to the tune of Rs 75.76 crore were utilized for carrying out developmental activities in the border areas.
Similarly, during the financial year 2019-20, the Ministry of Home Affairs released an amount of Rs 114.37 crore under BADP for Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. However, funds to the tune of only Rs 31.41 crore were utilized.
As an amount of Rs 91.2 crore was lying unspent with the Government of Jammu and Kashmir because of poor utilization for the intended objectives, the Ministry of Home Affairs stopped funding under BADP for the financial year 2020-21. However, during the current financial year, which will end on March 31, the Ministry released an amount of Rs 16 crore that too only for the Union Territory of Ladakh. But the Utilization Certificates of this amount are yet to be submitted by the Ladakh administration to the Ministry of Home Affairs.
It is pertinent to mention here that Government of India through Ministry of Home Affairs is implementing the BADP with the assistance of UTs’ administration in the habitations located within 0-10 kilometers from the first habitation of International Border in border blocks.
The main objective of the BADP is to meet the special developmental needs of the people living in remote and inaccessible areas situated near the border and to provide essential infrastructure in the border areas. Under this scheme, funds are allocated to the Governments for the works approved in their Annual Action Plan.
“With such a poor utilization of funds how the objective of the BADP can be achieved in the border areas remains a million dollar question”, sources said, adding “because of slackness in full utilization of funds released by the Ministry of Home Affairs the border dwellers have been deprived of the much needed developmental works as such strong resentment is prevailing among them”.
They further said, “no doubt the funds under the BADP are non-lapseable but that doesn’t mean that there should be slackness in the utilization by the administration especially in the light of the fact that several border blocks in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir are still lacking proper development and facilities”.
When contacted, an officer of the Planning, Development and Monitoring Department, while wishing anonymity, confirmed that because of huge unspent balance lying with Jammu and Kashmir the Ministry of Home Affairs preferred not to release even single penny during the financial years 2020-21 and 2021-22, said, “at present the utilization of funds has picked up momentum in the identified border blocks of Jammu and Kashmir Union Territory and the same is being monitored constantly at the highest level”.
The poor utilization of funds released by Ministry of Home Affairs is notwithstanding the fact that a Union Territory-level Committee is supposed to review and monitor the progress of schemes under the Border Area Development Programme and take note of policy and other bottleneck in BADP coverage areas besides reviewing the status of saturation of Central/Centrally Sponsored Schemes in border blocks/districts.
Administrative Secretaries of Finance, Home, PD&MD, both the Divisional Commissioners and DDCs of border districts are the members of this committee. Moreover, there are District Level Committees headed by concerned District Magistrate, which are responsible for planning and implementation of the BADP in the border blocks covered under the guidelines.
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