Chandigarh, December 5
The way crores of rupees of discretionary grants are doled out by Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his council of ministers could put the lofty ideals of Indian democracy to shame. Information gathered under the Right to Information Act reveals that while discretionary grants have been given by these politicians primarily for their own constituencies, these have also been given for purposes clearly prohibited by the Constitution.
Grants have been given to private clubs, private educational institutions and individuals on the flimsiest of grounds and, in most cases, in violation of the guidelines laid down for giving these grants. What is worse is that the Chief Minister has been giving out separate grants for the construction of community places for Harijans and non-Harijans in the same village.
The Chief Minister and the ministers, supposedly ‘sanjhe’ to the entire state, obviously cannot look beyond their constituency’s electorate. Parkash Singh Badal spent Rs 34.50 crore in three years out of funds available with the Planning Department. “Out of this, the lion’s share of Rs 13.60 crore went to his home district, Muktsar. Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal disbursed grants worth Rs 10 crore during 2008-2009 from funds available with the Planning Department out of which Rs 8.13 crore went to his Giddarbaha constituency alone,” said Punjab and Haryana High Court advocate HC Arora who gathered this information under the RTI Act.
“The Chief Minister, ministers and the chief parliamentary secretaries are entitled to untied grants
disbursed through the Department of Rural Development and Panchayats. During 2008-2009, the Chief Minister’s quota of these grants was Rs 3 crore, that of the Deputy Chief Minister was Rs 2.5 crore, and Rs 1.50 crore were allocated to each minister and Rs 1 crore to each chief parliamentary secretary. The CM and FM had an additional quota of Rs 8 crore and Rs 2 crore from funds released by the Planning Department,” said Arora.
From the grants available from the Panchayat Department, the various ministers disbursed grants mainly in their own areas. Manoranjan Kalia gave Rs 1.29 crore to Jalandhar, Ranjit Singh Brahampura spent Rs 1.25 crore on Tarantaran, Tikshan Sood gave Rs 1.05 crore to Hoshiarpur, Parminder Singh Dhindsa spent Rs 76.54 lakh on Sangrur, Swarana Ram doled out Rs 78.08 crore on Kapurthala while Sucha Singh Langah spent Rs 45.60 lakh on Gurdaspur and Rs 38.75 on Tarantaran.
The story of expenditure of these grants by the other ministers is also similar. Janmeja Singh Sekhon (Rs 74.22 on Ferozepur); Hira Singh Gabria (Rs 1.07 crore on Ludhiana); Bijramjit S. Majithia (Rs 74.42 lakh on Amritsar); Sukhbir Singh Badal (Rs 1.01 crore on Bathinda and Rs 91.50 lakh on Amritsar); Upinderjit Kaur (Rs 1.19 crore on Kapurthala); Adarsh Partap Singh Kairon (Rs 57.85); Lakshmi Kanta Chawla (Rs 76.10 on Amritsar); Ajit Singh Kohar (Rs 1.16 crore on Jalandhar); Master Mohan Lal (Rs 68.76 on Gurdaspur) and Gulzar Singh Ranike (Rs 61.01 on Amritsar and Rs 35.60 lakh on Jalandhar).
The disbursement of grants by chief parliamentary secretaries also follows the same pattern. They spent 68 per cent of the grants on their own districts and constituencies.
(To be concluded)
