By TCN News
New Delhi: Ministry of Minority Affairs (MoMA) flagship program has become a textbook copy of government inaction. State Minister Vincent H. Pala today informed the Lok Sabha that for the year 2010-11 states have reported utilization of 75.30% of the funds released to them under -sectoral Development Programme (MsDP).
This doesn’t look that bad until you consider that the amount in budget under this program was 1327.32 crores from which 913.23 crores was released. From Ministry’s own admission the amount utilized by states and union territories comes out to be 687.66 crores. Which means about half of the funds budgeted for MsDP ever got utilized.
Ministry admits that “the pace of implementation of MsDP has been slow due to late submission of plans by States/UTs, non- availability of land and location related problems, inordinate delay in transfer of fund by State/UTs to the district, non release of required State share and long gestation period of infrastructure projects.”
Earlier in the year a Standing Committee of Parliament criticized MoMA for underutilization of funds of Multi-sectoral Development Program (MsDP) in Minority Concentration Districts (MCDs) since the mega program of Ministry of Minority Affairs launched in 2008-09. In its 27th Report, the Standing Committee on Social Justice and Empowerment (2011-2012) says that since the inception of MsDP in 2008, an amount of Rs. 2359.39 Crore has been released against which expenditure of only Rs. 1174.93 Crore has been reported by the States/UTs. The panel has criticized the minority ministry for casual approach towards the program.
Under MsDP program, funds are available for infrastructure projects like building schools, hospitals, and schools in any of the 90 Minority Concentration Districts (MCDs).
Links:
http://www.minorityaffairs.gov.in/msdp
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