Look what this MP has done besides, of course, being the PM of India

Fourteen projects involve educational institutions, including primary and middle schools, colleges, two computer labs, and a chemistry lab in Guwahati University. Of the other four, three are for development of burial and cremation grounds, and the last is at an old-age home.

There was a balance of about Rs 17 lakh remaining from previous years, which is proposed to be spent on developing an elementary school, a college building and upgrading the paediatric ICU at Guwahati Medical College Hospital. Singh’s MPLADS fund utilisation over the past decade stands at an impressive 93 per cent.

One thing, though, is clear: the politician hasn’t quite forgotten the academic. As many as 33 primary schools in and around Guwahati have got new buildings, safe drinking water supply, toilets.

‘‘In every meeting where he reviews his MPLADS projects,’’ says Jagannath Das, senior planning officer, Kamrup district, ‘‘Dr Singh keeps hammering on educational institutions. Primary schools are his priority.’’

Abani Kumar Deka, headmaster of the Prasanna Vidyapeeth in central Guwahati, says: ‘‘Though constructing schools and maintaining them is the state government’s responsibility, we consider ourselves lucky that Dr Singh, as an MP and Prime Minister, is concentrating on primary schools.’’ Deka’s primary school will soon have a new building thanks to the Prime Minister’s MPLADS.

Most MPs spend their annual Rs 2 crore MPLADS kitty targeting the next election, focusing on one voter segment. By this reckoning, Manmohan Singh has been a failure: the schools he’s funded are spread from Muslim-dominated Garigaon and Hedayetpur to Bengali-populated Maligaon to tribal-inhabited Odalbakra and Narengi.

Science is a priority. ‘‘Ours was one of the first colleges to get a new building for zoology and botany under Dr Singh’s MPLADS, in 1998-99,’’ says Rekha Deka, principal of Guwahati’s B. Borooah College. Deka now wants help to rebuild the 60-year-old main building, which was burnt down in an accident two months ago.

Rekha Deka recalls how she went from one MP to another, seeking money for the biosciences wing.

‘‘All of them gave assurances,’’ she remembers; only Manmohan Singh acted. Krishna Barman, principal of LCB College, has a similar story: ‘‘When it comes to building a lab or hall, most people, including MPs, shy away. Yet when we applied to the Prime Minister, the response was almost immediate.’’

‘‘You apply, an officer comes, and the sanction letter follows,’’ says Rekha Deka, describing the process of dealing with PM as MP.

IAS officer Kumar Sanjay Krishna was deputy commissioner for Kamrup district when, in 1994-95, Singh made his initial MPLADS commitments. ‘‘He asked for a report on hospitals and schools,’’ Krishna, now in the PMO, remembers, ‘‘when it was found hospitals needed more funds (the then limit was Rs 10 lakh per project) he said, ‘Let us look at schools’.’’

Businesslike as ever, Singh frowns upon profligacy. In 1994-95, officials say, he wanted to use MPLADS money to build an approach road to Madan Kamdev — the Khajuraho of Assam, 30 km outside Guwahati. The state PWD gave an estimate of Rs 66 lakh.

The Prime Minister instead sought cheaper options. Eventually, the district administration built the 4.5-kilometre road for Rs 13 lakh.

No wonder Manmohan’s MPLADS has many schools, no scandals.