Disputing the Narendra Modi government's claim that it has achieved 84 per cent sanitation coverage in rural areas, a parliamentary panel said that these claims lie only on paper. The Standing Committee on Rural Development in its 51st report on Swachch Bharat Mission has found an unspent balance to the tune of Rs 9,890 crore under the scheme.
Most of the unspent balance, the Committee said, was from Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Punjab, and Jammu & Kashmir.
"For instance, in Uttar Pradesh Rs 2,836.82 crore, in Bihar Rs 2,764.62 crore, in Madhya Pradesh Rs 866.68 crore, in Assam Rs 606.30 crore, in Odisha Rs 436.71 crore, in Andhra Pradesh Rs 420.16 crore are lying unspent. The Committee finds broad reasons responsible for unspent balances has been inadequate capacity building at grass roots level and existence of revolving funds and leveraging other sources of credit etc," the report stated.
Taking serious note of the process of disbursement of the Centre's share in the fund, the Committee, headed by parliamentarian P Venugopal, said that how did the Centre share the funds "while the pile of unspent balances are increasing". "The Committee is perplexed as to how this can take place if the instalments are not released unless the Utilization Certificates (UCs) are duly received by the Central Government," it stated.
It directed that the Centre's share henceforth under the scheme should be shared only after the UCs are verified.
To ensure that more money is spent under the scheme, the Committee said that the implementation should be strengthened and the scheme should be strictly monitored. It suggested that the secretary of the drinking water and sanitation ministry should visit these states to increase spending, and if that fails, the Centre should formulate state-specific action plans.
