Who Says, 'No Money'?

The perpetual complaint of the Assam Government is that it is short of funds to complete so-called development plans that it lines up and that there is no money even to pay salaries to the most vulnerable section of our population such as primary and middle school teachers. Hundreds of them have had to go without their salaries for 39 months! This is an intolerable situation in any civilized country. To reserve such discrimitory hardship only for the most economically vulnerable segments of society constitutes the behaviour of bullies—something hardly expected of a democratically elected government. However, the latest reports point out that the Assam government was able to spend only 36.4 per cent of the total plan allocation for the year 2014-15. We are, therefore, up against a situation that speaks volumes of serious political and bureaucratic inefficiency. To be incapable of even spending what comes with a tag of 90 per cent grant and just 10 per cent loan in any fiscal year speaks of great inefficiency and administrative lethargy and perhaps even idequate training in such exercises. However, this is only a part of the story. We need to know not only what was unutilized, but also what was misappropriated and squandered. We have a bit of the story of fincial crises arising out of inefficiency, but we do not have much of the story of the extent of loot of the exchequer that took place within the fiscal year. Without some knowledge of how much was looted, there is only an incomplete picture.