From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru

Bengaluru, Dec 14: In a bid to utilise the unspent funds to the tune of Rs 406 crore sanctioned under the MLA and MLC Area Development Fund, the State Government has come out with a new initiative - Siddu Sarakarada Nade Sevegala Kade (Siddaramaiah’s March towards Providing Services).

The State Government has drawn up plans for utilising all the available funds before the close of the current financial year 2017-18 obviously to ensure that there was no room for complaints during the ensuing Assembly elections in Karnataka in April-May next year.

The unused amount under the MLA and MLC Area Development Fund would be spent on taking development works by calling short-term tenders.

However, owing to various reasons such as delay in preparing action plans and approvals, unscientific project proposals, several legislators have not spent the funds sanctioned for development of their constituencies.

In fact, funds sanctioned for welfare Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes too have not been utilised properly with just 45 % expenditure till the end of November.

Minister for Science and Technology and Statistics M R Seetharam told reporters in Bengaluru on Thursday that funds would be utilised before end of March 2017.

The MLA and MLC Area Development Funds would be utilised for repairing buildings of schools, hospitals, anganwadis and other services.

As of now, it was decided to utilise funds for repair works of 2700 school buildings, 309 hospital buildings and 346 anganwadi buildings across the State.

The Deputy Commissioner of each district has been asked to call short-term tenders for expediting development works.

Seetharam said additional deputy commissioners would be appointed as nodal officers for monitoring works once in 15 days.