Do not miss the central assistance

Those who rule the states never miss an opportunity to talk about the negligence of the central government. However, it is common practice for the State to lose funds allocated by the Centre for various projects by not completing the projects on time and submitting the details on time. This flaw is mainly caused by bureaucrats and the political leadership.

According to the CAG report tabled in the Assembly, the state has lost Rs 195.82 crore due to non-implementation of the central allocation under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana for housing the rural poor. In 2016-17, the Center sanctioned `121.90 crore in the first instalment for 32,559 houses. According to the report, the state failed to achieve the second installment of Rs 121.90 cr. In 2017-18, the central share of Rs 73.92 crore was not received. As a result, 25,144 families lost their homes within two years. The politics of the ruling party are often involved in finding beneficiaries. This will lead to complaints and protests.

Panchayats excluded the disqualified from the probability list of 1,68,747 and submitted a permanent list of 75,709. Of these, only 30,300 were later found to be eligible. Due to these reasons, the project could not be completed. With this, the financial assistance of the Center was lost. Who is responsible for receiving money but not spending it properly? Has any action been taken against them? In the meantime, it is a good thing that Kerala has completed 5796 houses for Scheduled Castes and 10305 houses for others. The government is also failing to provide adequate housing assistance to many deserving people. The most important of these is that even if landless people are found, they will not be given land on time. According to the report, there are 5712 homeless beneficiaries in Kerala. The non-availability of land to the deserving persons was due to the failure to implement the ministerial level decision to take over the land held by various departments. Officials generally have a tendency to drag on everything. This should not be allowed in any way. If there is an action against the officials who fail in their duty, they will be ready to settle all these on time. Instead, those who do not work under the guise of always preaching against central neglect will escape.

An amount of `23 lakh was spent for the construction of a modern fish market at the Thiruvananthapuram camp. Although the market was completed with vitrified tiles and marble stones, no one has been able to use it yet. The main reason is that the water supply system is not proper. This amount is to be recovered from the engineer of the respective corporation who omitted it. Such incidents are like saying that there is money to buy an elephant but not a bullhook. Virtually, the money remains buried somewhere without any use.