After patting on the back by announcing that he would give one per cent of the annual budget of the ministry for rural development (`99,000 crores) to the ministry of panchayati raj, Union minister Jairam Ramesh is faced with reality check — that it is not he who can do so, but Parliament only.
A few weeks ago, Union minister for rural development Jairam Ramesh announced that one per cent of his ministry’s annual budget, which would come to about `990 crores, would be given to the panchayati raj ministry. The objective was that the panchayati raj institutions need to be strengthened for capacity building so that the Centre’s flagship programmes could be implemented more effectively.
While no one is questioning the intention of the move, it has been learnt that secretary of the ministry of rural development S. Vijay Kumar has brought to the attention of Mr Ramesh that the ministry does not have the power to transfer a part of its budget to other ministry. “While a ministry’s budget could be reduced, the increase in the budget of a ministry has to be approved by Parliament. There is no other way of doing so. If the ministry of panchayati raj at all needs to be given additional `1,000 crores or so, it has to be done through Parliament only,” said a senior official in the ministry.
In fact, not all the schemes of the ministry of rural development have to be executed through the panchayati raj institutions (PRIs). “The Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna (PMGSY), which accounts for second highest budgetary allocation after the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), has nothing to do with PRIs,” added the official.
However, the ministry of rural development (MoRD), the official stated, can on its own spend on strengthening and capacity building of gram panchayats, which take up programmes under MNREGA, Total Sanitation Campaign, Indira Awas Yojna for execution. “If the MoRD wants to spend on gram panchayats, it can do on its own without going to ministry of panchayati raj,” added the official.