City MLAs lag in using constituency funds

City legislators fare badly when it comes to spending from their Constituency Development Programme (CDP). Of the `36 crore released by the government, the 16 legislators in the city utilised less than `10 crore in 2017-18.

The government released `2.25 crore to each of the city legislators to take up development works in their constituencies.

Five legislators from the city, according to the information obtained under the Right to Information Act, utilised below `50 lakh in their constituencies: K. Laxman (Musheerabad), G. Kishan Reddy (Amberpet), Talasani Srinivas Yadav, (Sanathnagar), Syed Ahmed Pasha Quadri (Charminar) and Akbaruddin Owaisi (Chandrayangutta).

The data for minister T. Padma Rao (Secunderabad) shows ‘0’ in all columns.

A few legislators including Kauser Mohiuddin (Karwan), Maozam Khan, (Bahadurpura), Ahmed Bin Abdullah Balala (Malakpet) and Jaffar Hussain Meraj (Nampally) took up works worth more than `1 crore in their constituencies.

The government provides funds through the planning department to the legislators to take up the works in their respective constituencies. The funds were nearly doubled from `1.5 crore in 2015.

Forum for Good Governance secretary, Padmanabha Reddy said they had written to the state government to allocate the money being given as part of the CDP to the GHMC for its effective utilisation.

“There are cases where a few legislators have not utilised the funds though the government had doubled the budget. There are also several cases where different agencies executed the same works exploiting the loopholes in the audit system. There is literally no audit for the CDP funds,” Mr Padmanabha Reddy said.

He said the GHMC area had about 20 MLAs and 10 MLCs apart from five MPs who get a total of `200 crore. “The money can be put to better use,” he added.