The Garo Hills Autonomous District Council (GHADC) passed the Rs 199 crore budget for the upcoming year put forward by the Chief Executive Member, Benedict R Marak, today.
Already strapped for cash, this budget does not aim to fix matters as it is in deficit to the tune of Rs 48 crore.
Questions have been raised about the size of the budget, which is Benedict’s first after taking the helm in April, by the opposition Congress and Tura MDC Bernard Marak, who is from the BJP.
Some of the departments that have seen the largest increases in their individual budgets include some of the most controversy-ridden, such as Civil Works (Rs 65.93 crore budget) which has been accused of misusing a one-time central government grant for development work of Rs 100 crore five years ago, General Administration (Rs 10.66 crore), a Forest Department (Rs 21 crore) that has overseen the withering of Garo Hills’ green cover and Agriculture (Rs 16.18 crore).
Opposition MDCs cannot fathom why Agriculture, and other departments like Tourism and Transport, need such large allocations of funds for their small-scale operations.
“The Transport Department has been allotted Rs 2.84 crore when not a single vehicle is run or even maintained by it,” an opposition member said. “All vehicles of MDCs and officers are repaired and maintained in workshops outside the ambit of the district council.”
The Printing Department, meanwhile, has been sanctioned Rs 2.63 crore despite the council’s printing press not having its own printing machine; all printing work has been farmed out to private operators for the past few years because no GHADC administration has bothered to restart printing operations in-house.
