What a sort of letdown of farmers by the Members of Parliament (MPs) from Odisha! When farmers in State were scampering hard to arrange water for their dying crops following drought, a majority of the State MPs have kept pumping their local Area Development (lAD) funds more and more on community centres in their constituencies.
The irony is when works worth Rs60 crore were recommended by MPs under MPlAD during 2014 - 16 for ‘other public facilities’ - mostly on community centres, mere Rs40 lakh works were recommended for augmenting irrigation infrastructure in their constituencies.
When MPlAD is for building up priority sector assets, irrigation looks not a priority sector for State MPs. Reason: In around two-and-half decades, only 1,489 irrigation-related works were recommended against over 20,621 community centres and nearly 2,000 cultural centres. In contrast, total spending in irrigation works under MPlAD in suicide and drought prone States like Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh has been 2-3 times more.
Moreover, during summer over 1crore populace in State would be hard pressed to find access to potable water, and in rainy season they take unsafe water only to get struck down by epidemics. A whopping 22 per cent PHCs and 36 per cent health sub-centres have no water supply. Even, Maoists now made it a big issue to drum up support. But State MPs could recommend works worth Rs2 crore for drinking water facilities during 2014 - 16, and that too, around 65 - 70 per cent of the total recommended works were by a lone MP (Baijyant ‘Jay’ Panda). Also, when the State healthcare centres were in dire need of beds, only Rs1 crore worth works were recommended by State MPs in 2014 - 16, reveals an analysis.
Furthermore, the shocker for the State is Odisha finished second from bottom among 19 major States in MPlAD utilisation nationally in 2015-16 thanks to lethargic implementation of recommended works by the State implementing agencies, notwithstanding numerous video conferencing by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. This shows how red-tape coils up even the MPs in the State.
Significantly, despite MPs like Rabindra Jena (Baleswar), Kalikesh Deo (Balangir), Baijyant ‘Jay’ Panda (Kendrapada), Prasanna Patsani (Bhubaneswar), lK Swain (Aska), AK Deo (Kalahandi), Nagendra Pradhan (Sambalpur) and Jual Oram (Sundergarh) recommending works worth over Rs8 crore, Odisha cuts a sorry figure with 7th overall among 37 States and Union Territories with mere 32 per cent utilisation rate.
An analysis also shows Odisha figured last nationally with a lowest rate (62 per cent) of sanction over funds released among the major States during the period 1993-2016. However, when the average recommendation by MPs in Odisha stood at around Rs6.8 crore during 2014-16, as many as 10 MPs have fared below the State average. Except Keonjhar and Sundergarh constituencies, all other ST and SC MPs have made below par recommendations.
But one interesting trend observed is MP Rabindra Jena has recommended the most number of works under ‘non-conventional energy’ in State, when State is facing power-crunch.