Panel to ensure proper use of BEST surcharge
Mumbai: The state will set up a joint committee of the finance, women and
child welfare departments to ensure that funds raised for child nutrition
schemes through cesses and surcharges are used solely for this purpose. The
announcement by women and child welfare minister Harshwardhan Patil came
after MLAs across parties brought the matter, reported by TOI on February 5,
to the notice of the state legislative assembly through a calling attention
motion.
TOI had in a front-page report revealed that over the last three
decades, Mumbaikars have paid a whopping Rs 357 crore as surcharge on BEST
bus tickets to fund nutrition schemes for underprivileged children. The
welfare fund managed by the government used to initially charge five paise
before it was increased to 15 paise per ticket last year. Chandrakant
Anandpara (79), an occasional bus commuter filed an RTI application with
BEST asking why the surcharge was being collected and how it had been used.
BEST replied that it raised Rs 321.8 crore from April 1975 to July 2006 as
“nutrition surcharge”. Anandpara was not able to get a reply on what it had
been used for.
MLAs including Bhai Jagtap, Rohidas Patil, P U Mehta and Jagannath
Shetty raised the issue through a calling attention motion in the state
legislative assembly on Tuesday. “Despite Mumbaikars paying crores in the
form of this cess, hundreds of children die of malnutrition every year. Then
what is this money being used for?” Jagtap asked. Minister of state for
finance Sunil Deshmukh replied that the money had been given to the state by
the BEST and it was being used for nutrition schemes for children in the age
group of 0 to 6, pregnant women and new mothers. “The government has spent
Rs 2017 crore since 1993 on these schemes,” Deshmukh added.
Deshmukh’s reply did not go down well with members of the house who
demanded that they be given a precise account of the money collected through
surcharge on BEST and ST tickets, professional tax and other sources. “The
government puts all this money in a consolidated fund and uses it to pay its
share of central schemes. In this way, the original intended beneficiaries
do not benefit from this cess,” said Peasants and Workers Party MLA
Ganpatrao Deshmukh. “The government is juggling numbers,” BJP MLA Girish
Bapat added.