‘Send officials who failed to utilise SCP-TSP funds to jail’

Taking severe exception to poor utilisation of funds below the Scheduled Caste Special Component Plan (SCP) and Tribal Sub-Plan (TSP), Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee spokesperson and Chittapur MLA Priyank Kharge instructed the State authorities to ship officials accountable for the lapse to jail.

“The funds released for development works under SCP and TSP three years ago remain unutilised due to official lethargy. As per the law, funds released under SCP and TSP must be used in the same year. However, officers in Kalaburagi have not even completed the tender process in most cases. The government should take this seriously and send a few errant officers to jail so that others would learn a lesson,” Mr. Priyank stated in a KDP assembly held at Mahatma Gandhi Auditorium in Gulbarga University on Wednesday.

The assembly was chaired by Mines and Geology Minister Murugesh Nirani who is in command of Kalaburagi district.

In their response, some officers admitted that tenders weren’t opened for works below SCP and TSP as that they had obtained some objections. They additionally knowledgeable that that they had written to larger authorities in search of steering on the difficulty.

Mr. Nirani directed the officers to full the tender course of and take up pending works instantly.

Reminding the assembly of earlier district in-charge Minister Govind Karjol’s promise within the final KDP assembly to conduct an inquiry into complaints concerning the high quality of Mullamari irrigation undertaking inside 15 days, Mr. Priyank sought details about the motion taken. “Has the inquiry been conducted? Where is the report? What is the action taken?”

In the absence of a senior officer, a junior engineer instructed the assembly that the undertaking was taken up in 2018 at a value of ₹124 crores, of which ₹90 crore had been spent to full round 90% of the work. He promised to full the remaining work inside 5 months.

Intervening at this level, MLC Sunil Valyapure alleged that work on the undertaking was poor proper from the start and demanded an intensive probe by the Lokayukta. Mr. Nirani promised to summon the senior officer involved to get the main points.

As the assembly started, Mr. Priyank raised objections over what he referred to as violation of protocol within the conduct of presidency conferences and programmes.

“Yesterday, a vaccine warehouse was inaugurated and the name of Ms. Kaneez Fatima, MLA for Gulbarga North, was dropped from the invitation card. A day before yesterday, a COVID-19 vaccination programme was held in Afzalpur but local MLA M.Y. Patil was not invited. Today, in the KDP meeting, Ajay Singh, Chief Whip in the Legislature, was not invited on the dais. These are deliberate moves to avoid Congress legislators. We never did such things when we were in power,” Mr. Priyank stated.

Mr. Nirani admitted to the lapses and apologised. He promised to be sure that such issues by no means occur sooner or later.