House passes supplementary grants
Source: Hueiyen News Service
Imphal, March 15 2011:
The House of the State Assembly today passed ' 838.11 crore supplementary demands for grants covering 46 demands and three appropriations for the year 2010-11 after government clarified on cut motions moved by opposition members.
Chief Minister, O Ibobi had tabled the demands in the House yesterday.
Out of the total ' 838.11 crore demands, ' 11.55 crore was charged on the consolidated fund of the state and ' 826.36 crore to be voted by the House.
Moving the demands for passing by the House, the CM said that the supplementary demands are necessitated largely on account of the payment of salaries and arrears of employees due to implementation of revised pay as per recommendation of the 6th pay commission and increase in plan outlay, higher allocation of fund under NEC and release of more funds under Centrally sponsored schemes, Central plan schemes etc.
Due to restriction on re-appropriation of fund from revenue to capital and also from voted to charged and vice-versa, it is necessary to provide additional funds through demands for supplementary grants although there are savings in either of the two under each grant, he added.
Out of the total demands passed today, a major portion of this demand, that is ' 266.25 crore, is on account of salaries and arrears consequent upon the revision of pay, payment of interest of market borrowing and state provident fund, payment of pension benefits and leave encashment to retired employees, making provision for modernization of police, purchase of three hovercrafts and payment of remuneration and purchase of uniform items for Village Defence Force (VDF), and infrastructure development in various sectors, he said.
The supplementary demands also include additional plan fund amounting to ' 266.82 crore.
The additional fund has been sought for investment to the unfinished projects under SPA for previous year, for implementation of various schemes including in tribal areas sub-plans, construction of a composite check post at Henbung, purchase of a mobile jammer for installation at the Central jail, Sajiwa and others, the CM said.
Another ' 305.04 crore that was sought for grant by the house was meant for meeting additional expenditure including backlong of CSS, CPS, NEC, etc.
The additional fund was sought on account of development of infrastructure of quality seeds, macro management of agriculture, construction of a district veterinary hospital under NLCPR, development of a national park and sanctuary, implementation of accelerated programmes of restoration and regeneration of forest cover and implementation of national rural drinking water, he said.
Opposition members taking part in the discussion pointed out various flaws in the implementation of the aforesaid projects and schemes and demanded that government should take up measures to bring the implementation of the projects and schemes in the right directions.
O Joy pointed out that even though Centre's flagship programmes have brought about marked changes in other states in the country, in Manipur no such marked changes have been witnessed till date.
The state failed to ensure 100 days works in a year to job card holders of the MGNREGS programme.
Wages of the workers were also not disbursed well on time.
Asserting that no proper work was taken up by the Fisheries Department for enhancement of fish production in the state, Th Shaymkumar of the MPP urged the government to leave the attitude of seeking supplementary demands for grant without assesing whether schemes in all sectors are properly implemented or not.
After the CM's clarification the house passed the supplementary demands for grant for 2010-11 .
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