Celebrities are often accused of just showing lip sympathy for the common people. Most believe that they make very bad politicians or administrators. Two celebrity members of the upper house in Parliament (Rajya Sabha) – cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar and cinema legend Rekha – have not spent a single paisa from their Members of the Parliament Local Area Development (MPLAD) fund towards the development of the area they have adopted after they were nominated to the house of elders two years ago.
The members of the Rajya Sabha will have to adopt a district of their choice as their area for development. While Sachin Tendulkar has adopted Mumbai Suburban as his district, Rekha has not even adopted any district. According to Parliament records their percent of utilisation is ‘Zero’.
According to http://mplads.nic.in, these two have not sent any development work proposal to the government. Both have an entitlement amount of Rs 10 crore each in their MPLAD account. Each MP is entitled for Rs 5 crore MPLAD fund every year.
These MPs have to indentify developmental work in their area and send proposal to the local District Collector or District Magistrate or Deputy Commissioner. They can take up minor developmental works like road building, construction school buildings, community halls, installing free drinking water tanks and building bus shelters etc in their area.
