NEW DELHI: Kerala MPs are the most miserly among all lawmakers across the country when it comes to spending the MPLADS funds. According to the latest data on MPLADS, Kerala MPs have spent merely 15 per cent of the total funds eligible to them.The North-East region leads in MPLADS fund utilisation in the country, with some states even spending 100 per cent of the funds.In the rest of the country, Tamil Nadu is the topper, as its MPs have spent 57 per cent of the total funds. Tamil Nadu is followed by Punjab and Goa. The government had recently raised the MPLADS amount from `2 crore to `5 crore per year.Among Kerala MPs, Anto Antony has spent the most. He, so far, has spent Rs 1.63 crore and is followed by N Peethambara Kurup, a Congress MP from Kollam, who has spent Rs 1.60 crore.Other state MPs who have crossed the Rs 1-crore mark are M B Rajesh (Rs 1.26 crore), P Karunakaran (Rs 1.15 crore), Kodikunnil Suresh (Rs 1.35 crore) and K C Venugopal (Rs 1.06 crore).The most miserly is P T Thomas who has spent just Rs 0.08 crore so far. Mullappally Ramachandran has spent barely Rs 0.11 crore for his constituency.The MPs, however, attribute this poor performance to too much paper work and lack of effective monitoring mechanism. They also blame it on “ineffective reporting system”.Tharoor, incidentally, is one of the lowest spenders. He has spent only Rs 0.66 cr so far from May 2009 onwards. However, Ram insisted that the actual figure was much more. He put the blame on the “inefficiency” of parliamentary reporting system which fails to get actual figures on MPLADS fund utilisation.Another Kerala MP who is also a minister in the Centre said it was “very tough’’ to monitor the scheme as he has “handful’’ of work to do in Delhi as a minister. “For ordinary MPs it is easier, but it is a sad fact that even they are not doing enough,’’ he said.The only way out, according to him, is to have a senior officer exclusively in every district to monitor the progress of the MPLADS. “A mere clerk will not do,’’ he said.Suggesting the same, Ram said, “It is very important to have a middle-level officer in every district to monitor the MPLADS, especially because the funds have been hiked to Rs 5 crore.”Though, they may be miserly in spending MPLADS money, but Kerala MPs quite diligent when it comes to attendance in Parliament, if one goes by the records.K P Dhanapalan and P T Thomas have the highest percentage of attendance in the past two years -- 72 and 86, respectively.On an average, they have asked 73 questions this year, while it was 93 for the previous year. Kodikunnil Suresh and Jose K Mani lead the pack by asking the largest number of questions. Kodikunnil has asked 153 questions this year and Jose K Mani has asked 126 questions.
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