Telangana Government starves ZPs, MPPs of funds

Hyderabad: The Zilla and Mandal Parishads are left in lurch for want of funds as the State government is yet to release funds to them to carry out the development activities in the respective areas.

Though the Zilla Parishad and Mandal Parishad Territorial Constituencies members were disappointed as they have expected announcement of funds in the recent annual budget of the State government.

The State government neither considered the report of State Finance Commission nor made a special provision for funds to the Zilla and Mandal Parishads in the budget of the next financial year.

The Mandal and Zilla Parishads are dependent on the funds of the State and Central governments as they do not have any resources of their own.

Though they are supposed to get the share of royalty of the mines in the districts, it has to be released by the State government and these funds are not released in the past six years.

In the past, the ZPs and MPPs were used to get funds from the Centre in the form of Finance Commission Grants. The FC grants will be shared between ZPs, MPPs and Gram Panchayats as per the fixed formula.

The practice has been discontinued during the 14th Finance Commission and the FC grants have been directly given to GPs in total.

After the formation of Telangana, the State government did not make any provision for the funds to the ZPs and MPPs.

The ZPs and MPPs, which have been formed in July last year, are unable to carry out any development activity in their respective areas as they do not have funds with them.

They are endowed with the responsibility of constructing roads between the villages, from Mandal headquarters to district headquarters, buildings to schools, hospitals, anganwadis, bridges and other infrastructure. They also have the responsibility of maintaining certain services.

The ZPTCs and MPTCs have been seeking funds from the government and the meetings of ZPs and MPPs have become namesake as the works proposed in these meetings could not be carried out due to want of funds.

The meager funds being given to them are sufficient enough to meet the salaries of the ZP and MPP office staff.

Recently the Centre has informed the States that the 15th FC funds should be shared among ZPs, MPPs and GPs as per the fixed formula.

It has asked the State governments to send proposals on sharing the funds between the rural local bodies. The State government is yet to send the proposals for sharing the funds between the rural local bodies. The Central FC funds would be released from next financial year.

Apart from that the State government has to announce its own funds to the ZPs and MPPs and no provision was made in the budget.

The officials said that they would add State funds to the Central FC funds and would release them to ZPs and MPPs in next financial year.

The State government it yet to receive the report of the State Finance Commission, which was appointed two years ago. The SFC determines the funds to be granted to the rural local bodies.