Jung seeks details on legislator's LAD fund

Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung has sought clarifications on the AAP government’s proposal to enhance the legislators’ area development fund from Rs 4 crore to Rs 14 crore, sources said.

The Urban Development Department’s proposal to enhance the MLA LAD (Local Area Development) fund is being examined by Jung who has sought details of utilisation of the existing development funds by the legislators and similar financial powers of legislators in other states and Union Territories.

In addition to the proposed Rs 14 crore, the Delhi Jal Board would spend Rs 1 crore in each constituency, taking the total spending power of an MLA to Rs 15 crore.

Sources said the Raj Niwas is worried that law makers who have not made full use of their existing Rs 4 crore allocation, may end up underutilising even the enhanced amount of Rs 14 crore.

Details have now been sought by the Raj Niwas on how the legislators have utilised their MLA funds in the current financial year.

Under the proposed enhanced limit, each MLA would be allowed to spend a maximum of Rs 2 crore for any project under this scheme.

The proposal to raise the MLA LAD fund came from Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia as the expenditure on plan head was less than 17 per cent till July end this year. The spare funds are planned to be divided among all the 70 legislators.

Already, an amount of Rs 280 crore has been disbursed this year under MLA fund by the AAP government, sources said.

Along with the proposal to raise the legislators’ development funds, the AAP government has demanded a bigger share from the central tax poll and wants an unprecedented 15-fold hike in the amount from Rs 325 crore to Rs 5000 crore in 2017-18.

The Delhi government’s share in central taxes is Rs 325 crore since 2001 but Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has been pitching for an urgent review of this limit due to increase in the city’s population over the past decade and a half.

“We want a 15-fold increase in the Delhi’s share in the central taxes,” said an aide of Kejriwal. Besides writing a letter to the Home Ministry, the issue was raised by the AAP government through the Chief Secretary in a meeting with central government which discussing financial matters for Union Territories.