BHUBANESWAR: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik spitting fire at the new chairman-cum-managing director (CMD) of Nalco TK Chand on Monday over the Central public sector unit’s poor corporate social responsibility (CSR) activity appears to be misplaced.
The information collected indicate a completely different picture where none else but the State Government is to be blamed for Nalco’s poor record of CSR activity in 2012-13 and 2014-15 fiscal.
The national aluminium major is reported to have sanctioned `5.15 crore for periphery development for the two fiscals, but the funds could not be utilised as the Rehabilitation and Periphery Development Advisory Committees (RPDACs) concerned have not approved any projects for execution, Nalco sources said.
As per the July, 2011 guidelines for utilisation of funds for periphery development, projects approved by RPDAC only can be funded under CSR activity. While not a single project has been approved by RPDAC for Nalco’s Angul project site in the last five years, as far as Damanjodi site is concerned, clearance is pending for the last two years.
As a result, the sanctioned fund by Nalco has remained unspent, Nalco sources said, adding that the PSU is yet to get utilisation certificates (UCs) from Government for funds sanctioned for earlier projects.
Several projects under execution are lying incomplete for years due to non-release of second instalment for want of UCs. Projects approved by RPDAC received 60 per cent of the project cost as first instalment while the balance 40 per cent is released only after obtaining UCs, the sources said.
The Chief Minister pulling up Chand during his courtesy call on taking over as Nalco CMD has not gone down well with the Nalco setup. Its top brass think that they were targeted for no fault of theirs. “Since the decision to spend the money placed for CSR activities is entirely with the RPDACs headed by Revenue Divisional Commissioners (RDCs), it is unfortunate to pull up Nalco for any aberration,” a senior official of the PSU said.
Informed sources said the RPDACs in the State are in a state of limbo due to conflict of interests of elected representatives, who are members of the committee. All the MLAs, MPs, Zilla Parishad presidents and chairpersons of affected panchayat samitis are members of the committees.