Just tokenism, no substance

The Union government’s decision to suspend the Members of Parliament Local Area Development (MPLAD) scheme and effect a cut of 30 per cent in the salaries of the MPs for two years to raise money to fight pandemic Covid-19 is rich in symbolism but poor in substance. The MPLAD scheme authorises each member of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha to allocate `5 crore a year for development programmes in their constituencies. The money is often spent on infrastructure development though the scheme faces charges such as lack of interest on the part of the MPs and money being spent on unworthy projects. The decision to cut MPs salaries may satiate the middle class appetite for neta-bashing but the government would not tell them how much money it will save through the measure. Information minister Prakash Javadekar has contended that it’s not about the amount but about the message it sends to the country.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made his countrymen perform two tasks — of clapping the hands and lighting lamps — to send a message to the nation on its resolve to fight the virus. The government must now stop sending messages and instead start sending more testing kits to hotspots, money to states, personal protection equipment to healthcare workers, ventilators and medicines to hospitals and medicines for patients. It must also come up with an action plan on using the remaining period of the lockdown and its staggered lifting. It is also time the government addressed the issues plaguing the economy, which is at a standstill. The efficacy of the MPLAD scheme may be suspect but it would have proved an effective channel to ensure that every part of the nation gets some funds to fight the virus by restricting the use to this specific purpose. The central takeover of the scheme has nipped that option. It’s time for substantive action; tokenism can wait.