Code of conduct, a ruse for inefficiency

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Friday, March 4, turned out to be an unusually long day for officials at the Finance Department. After the Election Commission announced the dates for Assembly elections, there was a crazy haste to grant administrative sanction (AS) to as many projects as possible.

This should not be misunderstood as a desperate attempt to sustain the progress of a state suddenly stopped still by the game-ending whistle of the Model Code of Conduct. Once the Code is in place, an AS is no green light. The Code is specific that only those works that have already begun before the announcement can continue.

 “Politicians know this, but by granting the AS they can at least tell their voters that they had done everything to get a project or scheme up and running,” a top Finance Department official said. What’s more, this can also be shown as increased plan utilisation though, in reality, no money was transferred.

The state’s tradition of saving up the chunk of its development activities for the last quarter, especially the last month of the fiscal, has now come to haunt it. Over the years, on an average, a mind-boggling 30 percent of the plan outlay is spent during March. Now, with the end whistle blown, the ‘end of the fiscal’ development thrust will be denied to the state this fiscal.

On March 4, the day of the announcement, the plan utilisation for the 2015-16 was a paltry 51 per cent. Crucial sectors like agriculture, food and civil supplies, education and housing have fared miserably. Public schemes, especially in agriculture and animal husbandry, which require mass participation will now be severely hampered as the Code has banned any government-sponsored awareness programmes.
 

“The announcement has come as a big shock for us,” said Kozhikode mayor V K C Mammed Koya. “There will be no progress on projects that have reached the tender process. Road maintenance is going to be a biggest casualty, and this is going to be politically risky,” he said.

There is also a reason why development activities are heavily concentrated in the last quarter. “It has always been the case that tax collection picks up in the last quarter. So even for projects that had been given AS before, the allotment is provided only during the last quarter,” said Dr Mary George, member of the State Expenditure Review Committee.

The Code has also spawned confusion. Both Kozhikode mayor and Thiruvananthapuram Corporation secretary M Nizarudeen maintain that projects for which a ‘work order’ have been granted can be taken up during the election process. But the Code is very specific. “Work shall not be started in respect of which work order has been issued before announcement of election if the work has actually not started in the field.