14th Finance Commission grants delay hits Gram Panchayat works

Hyderabad: It is not just the state economy but even the village economy is now in doldrums as the Centre has not yet released Rs 726 crore that is due as part of 14th Finance Commission grants to the State. As the funds have not flown in for past eight months due to delay in submission of utilisation certificates by the government, all developmental activities in the gram panchayats have come to a standstill and even payment of salaries and maintenance of basic services have been stalled in all 12.751 panchayats since April.

In some panchayats, the sarpanches have been spending money from their personal resources to pay salaries of sweepers and workers. According to sources, the panchayats may not get funds till end of January. While all other States have released second instalment of the funds to their gram panchayats, Telangana is releasing the first instalment funds in instalments every month for past three months.

According to the report of the Union Panchayat Raj department 11 States have received the second instalment of the Finance Commission grants. Bihar has got Rs 5,674 crore, Haryana Rs 1,048 crore, Himachal Pradesh Rs 499 crore, Jharkhand Rs 1,632 crore, Madhya Pradesh Rs 3,660 crore, Odisha Rs 2,389 crore, Uttar Pradesh got Rs 9,650 crore and West Bengal got Rs 3,700 crore. Telangana has been allocated Rs 1,451 crores in this financial year but has received only Rs 725 crores so far.