Biman Banerjee calls for meeting to iron out MLALAD expenditure issue

Kolkata: Speaker Biman Banerjee on Monday asked Tapas Roy, who holds the independent charge of Planning, Statistics and Programme Monitoring department, to convene a meeting of the standing committee of MLAs to take up the issue of spending MLALAD funds.

A number of MLAs in the state Assembly raised issues over less spending of MLALAD funds by some municipalities or utilising the same in schemes other than what it is allocated for.

The matter was raised by Left Front MLA of North Dum Dum Tanmoy Bhattacharya, who questioned Roy about the inability in spending MLALAD funds, popularly known as BUP funds, on the part of North Dum Dum and New Barrackpore municipalities.

The North Dum Dum municipality has spent Rs 23 lakh, while New Barrackpore has failed to spend any amount.

"There is a fixed guideline for spending funds under BUP scheme and there should be public display in the form of signboards mentioning the funds spent under the scheme. If it is found that proper procedure has not been followed in this regard, it is not desirable," Roy said.

He asserted that this fund is a right of the MLAs. "My department will again pass over direction to the District Magistrates to ensure that signboards are put up displaying expenditure of BUP funds," he added.

This fund is allocated by the state government on the recommendation of the respective MLAs for development work in the area and is spent through the municipalities.

Leader of Opposition Abdul Mannan mentioned that his MLALAD funds have been spent by Champdani and Baidyabati municipalities in Hooghly in some other projects against his recommendation.

"Often we are completely in the dark about how the municipalities spend these funds," Mannan added.

The Speaker said that the issue has been raised by a number of MLAs and asked Roy to organise a standing committee meeting of MLAs to solve the same.