How is Odisha’s Members of Parliament performingIJ Are they rightly raising issues concerning their constituenciesIJ Are they participating in the debate on State and national interestsIJ
These are some of the questions people should know. To let people know about the performance of our MPs, the Youth for Social Development (YSD) an organisation based in Brahmapur, made thorough analysis and prepared individual report cards of MPs. A matrix was used to prepare score and based on that, rank was finalised. These all have been done to considering overall performance of individual MPs on the following criteria.
These were 1) Attendance in Parliamentary proceedings 2)Questions asked 3)Spending cum utilisation of MPlAD funds 4)Participation in debates on national interests, 5)Moving Private Member Bills and 6) Identification of villages under Sansad Adarshare Gram Yojana etc. To analyse all these secondary sources mostly websites of lok Sabha, MPlAD and Sanji were referred.
Out of 21 MPs, Cuttack MP Bhatruhari Mahatab ranked No 1 while Rama Chandra Hansada, MP from Mayurbhanja, ranked 21. Jual Oram, lone MP of BJP from Odisha representing Sundargarh constituency and Hansada who is in jail for his clandestine involvement in chit fund scam fared poorly as both ranked below 18 on overall performance. Only three MPs secured above 50 score. Oram, being a Union Cabinet Minister, has some limitations on asking questions, participating in debates and attendance, etc.
On an average, it was found that 70 per cent utilisation of MPlAD funds and overall performance is slightly moderate. “Some MPs seem to be cautious because civil society is alert,” quipped lead researcher Ratneswar Sahu.
He further stated that MPs from Central Odisha, the politically advanced region, are faring better than that of their counterparts in southern and tribal backward regions. Kulamani Samal, MP from coastal Jagatsinghpur, attended all 287 days of Parliamentary sitting. It was shocking to find that Union Tribal Affairs Minister Oram was absent in all days except for one.
Brahmapur MP Sidhanta Mahapatra and Sundargarh MP Oram have not asked a single question. Oram has the obvious reasons for not asking questions because he is Minister in Cabinet rank and belongs to ruling BJP at Centre. But Mahapatra's case has been curious and has raised many eye brows.
Nagendra Pradhan, the first time MP from Sambalpur, has the unique distinction of asking 540 questions whereas leader of BJD Parliamentary Party Bhartruhari Mahtab asked 505 questions and another suave but articulate Member of Parliament from BJD, Baijayant 'Jay' Panda from Kendrapada, had asked 458 questions. Panda of late has resigned both from BJD and Parliament.
Two more MPs Rabindra Kumar Jena representing Baleswar and Kalikesh Narayan Singh Deo, MP from Balangir, have asked 448 and 400 questions, respectively.
Mahatab, Jena and Samal all three from socially and politically sensitive Cuttack, Baleswar and Jagatsinghpur Parliamentary seats have participated in 288, 271 and 118 debates respectively, whereas Tathagat Satpathy and Balabhadra Majhi have asked 82 and 67 questions, respectively.
As far as MPlAD funds spending is concerned Tathagat Satpathy, MP from Dhenkanal, has the record of spending 116 per cent, which means use of total allocated funds plus interest generated from monetary transactions. The second most spending of allocated funds comes from Kulamani Samal, MP Jagatsinghpur with 91.42 per cent, Bhatruhari Mahatab (87.76 per cent), Pravas Singh representing Baragarh (83.80 per cent) and Arjuna Sethy, six- time MP from Bhadrak (79.16%).
Interestingly, even after two years of the launch of the programme, 0nly 33 villages have been included in the PM Sansad Adarsha Gram Yojana.
“It is necessary to include social audit of assets created under MPlAD funds by the people. This may be designed on the similar lines of MGNREGS social audit. This would ensure greater accountability on the part of the elected representatives,” suggested YSD director Bibhu Prasad Sahu.
The report said only three MPs, Mahatab, Samal and Jena are able to cross 50 overall performance score out of total 100 points.
Almost all MPs of Odisha have spent more than 69 per cent of MPlAD funds except Rita Tarai representing Jajpur who only spent 57 per cent of her quota of MPlAD and is a poor performer in this category.
Sector-wise railways, roads, pathways and bridges top the list with nearly 43 per cent of the MPlAD funds being spent on these works.