MLA shows accounts.

Calcutta Telegraph; Sunday , June 26 , 2011,

Shillong, June 25: Mawprem legislator Manas Chaudhuri today made public the mid-term expenditure he incurred for the development of his constituency.

Meghalaya Governor R.S. Mooshahary who released the booklet Tryst with Mawprem (mid-term account for the years 2008-2011) during a function here today, said other legislators in the state can follow his example in maintaining transparency and accountability. The governor said unlike Assam legislators who avail of Rs 40 lakh per year as part of the MLA local area development fund, the Meghalaya legislators avail of Rs 1 crore. If effectively spent, all the 60 constituencies of Meghalaya can be developed with this huge amount.

“I wanted to join politics. But it the past it did not provide any livelihood and hence I chose a different path,” Mooshahary said. He recalled that in the past, the MPs and MLAs did not get enough salaries and allowances.

The legislators should fully utilise the funds provided to them with transparency so that development can be accelerated, he said.

In the age of the RTI Act and the need to implement Lokpal bill, the release of the booklet is timely, the governor said. He also asked the Meghalaya government to fill up the post of chief information commissioner at the earliest. The post has been lying vacant for the last three months.

Chaudhuri said the intention of releasing the mid-term report was to be accountable to the people he has been serving. Two former legislators, late T.H. Rangad and also his own brother Ardendhu Chaudhuri, had released the account of the expenditure incurred for various schemes and projects to bring about transparency and accountability, he said.

Chaudhuri stressed on the need to cultivate “political morality” to check corruption and to bring about better governance.