Union Information and Broadcasting Minister and ludhiana MP Manish Tewari on Wednesday took a strong exception to the poor utilisation of the central funds for various developmental schemes. He also took some officials to task for coming to the meeting without any preparation.
Presiding over the meeting of District Vigilance and Monitoring Committee as its chairman, Tewari expressed his displeasure over very low spending on Mahatama Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in ludhiana. He pointed out, while a target of Rs 150 crore had been set to be spent in ludhiana in this year, only Rs 11 crore had been spent so far.
The Minister asked the Deputy Commissioner Rajat Aggarwal to find out as why such a low amount of money was spent against a target of Rs 150 crores. He disclosed that in one of the districts in Rajasthan, Rs 2000 crores had been spent in a single year. He asked there was no reason why ludhiana could not spend the targeted amount particularly when there were no budgetary restrictions on expenditure under the scheme as it was need based.
Taking serious note of the issue, he asked the Deputy Commissioner that the concerned officials must be held accountable for such wrong projections by saying that Rs 150 crores will be spent while actually only Rs 11 crores had been spent so far. Tewari also took strong exception to the officials coming ill-prepared to the meeting. He said, they better not come to the meeting if they are not properly prepared and informed.
The DC assured the Minister that due cognisance would be taken of the matter. The Co-chairman of the committee and Fatehgarh Sahib MP SS libra also questioned the officials for not keeping the local representatives informed about various development works like the social audit on MGNREGA. On this, Tewari asked the Deputy Commissioner to put the entire report on MGNREGA audit on official website with a copy to all the members of the committee.