With three years left for the 2019 lok Sabha elections, four members of the lok Sabha from Odisha, including MPs from tribal constituencies, could recommend works aggregating to worth only around one-third of the total entitlement their constituencies have for the first three years (2014-17) of the current lok Sabha.
This trend is worrisome given the time lag between the recommendation, sanction and execution of the MPlAD (Member of Parliament local Area Development) works runs well over at least more than one and a half years in the State.
The disastrous fallout trend then observed in 16th lok Sabha is unspent balances under the MPlAD fund with the district authorities in Odisha having zoomed up to around Rs75 crore from Rs49 crore during the whole of the 15th lok Sabha, given the rate of sanctioned works to execution had fallen to mere 69 per cent in 2015-16 from a high of over 84 per cent in 2012-13. Even, the CAG in its earlier reports had taken umbrage over this rising tendency in the State.
Interestingly, with an utilisation rate of around 52 per cent during 2014-16, Odisha was slotted at a distant 18th in the country in the MPlAD fund use barometer. The national average is estimated at around 57 per cent. Among neighbouring States, except Jharkhand, Odisha lags behind others, including Bihar and Chhattisgarh.
While Kandhamal MP Pratyusha Rajeshwari Singh finished last among the four MPs with a recommendation to entitlement rate of s mere 23 per cent, Mayubhanj MP Ramchandra Hansdah, now in jail over the chit fund scam, followed her with a rate of around 29 per cent. Significantly, two more MPs from tribal constituencies, Jhina Hikaka (Koraput) and Balabhadra Maji (Nabarangpur), with a rate of 31 percent and 38 per cent, respectively, followed Hansdah.
Among the members of Parliament who have a good recommendation to entitlement rate, Kalikesh Singh Deo (Balangir) topped the State with 87 per cent and was closely followed by Rabindra Jena (Baleswar) and Baijayant Panda (Kendrapada) with a rate of around 83 per cent and 80 per cent, respectively. lone BJP MP and Union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram has a decent rate of over 62 per cent. Oram (Sundargarh) and Shakuntala laguri (Keonjhar) post a good show among the tribal MPs in the State. Among SC MPs, Rita Tarai (Jajpur) was the topper with a rate of 73 per cent.
Moreover, of the five tribal constituencies, only Sundargarh and Keonjhar have a high utilisation rate of MPlAD fund of around 72 per cent and 68 per cent, respectively.
When the State is under a massive water crisis, between 2014-16, the State saw sanction of only 101 works under the MPlAD ‘Drinking Water’ head, and when farmers are committing suicide over lack of irrigation access to their land, a mere 53 works were sanctioned under the ‘Irrigation’ head during the period.
Above all, the priority of MPs can well be ascertained from the fact that of over 13,000 works recommended and around 9,650 being sanctioned during 2014-16, a handful of around 540 works were related to the BSP (Bijli, Sadak and Pani).