MANGALDAI, March 11 � As the election fever is growing in Darrang district along with the rest of the State and all the present MLAs are set to contest in their respective constituencies for another five-year term, the dismal scenario of fund utilisation under the MLA Development Fund in all the three Assembly constituencies � Sipajhar, Mangaldai and Dalgaon under the nodal district Darrang has become a matter of concern for the people of the constituencies.
According to data received from an official source, an amount of Rs 1.50 crore out of the total sanctioned fund of Rs 5.70 crore in the last five years has still remained unutilised in all the three LACs of the district.The statistics shows that the average percentage of unutilised amount is not below 28. During this five-year period, the MLAs proposed a total of 555 developmental schemes but unfortunately a maximum of schemes remained incomplete.
The unutilised amount is maximum in the SC reserved 67 Mangaldai constituency represented by AGP MLA Hiren Kr Das.The unutilised amount in this constituency is around Rs 64 lakh.This resulted in failure of completion of 147 schemes out of the total 239 schemes undertaken in the constituency. The statistics are not far better in case of 68 Dalgaon LAC represented by Ilias Ali,one of associated members of the Congress-led State Government.The unutilised amount for this Dalgaon constituency is figured at about Rs 51 lakh. Similarly out of the 171 development schemes undertaken with the initiative of the local MLA, a total of 97 schemes still remain incomplete in the undeveloped constituency.
Significantly, Binanda Kr Saikia, MLA from the ruling Congress party in the 66 Sipajhar LAC failed miserably in properly utilising the MLA Development fund. In this constituency, an amount of Rs 50 lakh failed to be utilised for which as much as 90 schemes out the total 145 schemes under MLAD remained incomplete. Thus the development achieved by the ruling party MLA is only about 62 per cent.
