At the average of Rs 1.5 crore annually, the state legislative assembly members (MLAs) got a corpus of Rs 1,350 crore from 2017 to 2022 to spend. Out of total, the MLAs collectively proposed and got work worth Rs 1004 crore sanctioned and could get the works worth Rs 677 crore completed, leaving the corpus of Rs 327 crore unutilized.

The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Mahiti Adhikar Gujarat Pahel (MAGP) got the data of the five years' work by the state MLAs through both RTIs and the data available in public domain for analysis. The analysis also indicated that out of the total works sanctioned (53,029), 24% remained incomplete as the MLAs' terms would come to an end this year.

Pankti Jog, state coordinator of ADR, said that with the state elections approaching, ADR-MAGP has launched Gujarat Election Watch to provide the voters a comprehensive picture of the works done by the MLAs.

"We tried to get the item-wise list of the expenses to know where the money received by the MLAs was utilized - whether it was to install benches or improved health facilities, etc. But the state government has turned down 50 RTIs. We have again gone into appeal for the same," she said. She said that the exercise is required because even in the completed work, in 95% the pictures of the works were not uploaded as required.

The report indicated that the state assembly met for 114 days in five years, averaging 28 days annually. With 38,121 starred questions and 10,224 unstarred questions, only 2% of the starred and 32% unstarred questions were discussed in house. The primary reason was paucity of time, added activists.

The activists demanded a separate website that will provide details of expenditure of funds and work executed using MLALAD funds of each MLA in each year.