ZPTCs continue to reel under severe fund crunch

Hyderabad: The Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituency (ZPTC) members are unable to take up any works in their respective mandals as they have been deprived of funds.

Though they are preparing to participate in the general body meetings, they are yet to be allocated funds by the State government.

According ZPTC Kondal Reddy, Maddur mandal of Siddipet Zilla Parishad, the ZPs do not have any funds to make allocation to them.

He stated that same is the situation in all the ZPs of the State. The State government is yet to decide a policy under which the ZPTCs would get funds.

Kondal Reddy said that in the past the ZPTCs use to be provided with Rs one crore funds per annum through the ZPs.

The former ZPTCs could recommend works up to Rs one crore in their respective mandals. Earlier, the ZPs used to get funds from the Central, State Finance Commissions and also from the Backward Regions Grant Fund (BRGF) of the Centre.

He mentioned that Centre is now giving funds directly to the Gram Panchayats (GPs) and ZPs are not given any share.

In the past, the ZPs used to get 20 per cent of the funds being given to each district. According to ZPTC members, the State government is adding its own State Finance Commission funds to the Central Finance Commission funds and they are being given directly to the GPs. The Centre also stopped giving funds from the BRGF to ZPs.

They said that earlier the ZPs used to get some grants from the State government. But the State government stopped all the funds to the ZPs.

Even, it has become difficult for the ZPs to give salaries to the staff.

The ZPs have been given lot of responsibilities and functions under the Panchayat Raj Act. They can supervise the works of almost all the departments at the district-level. But without funds, the ZPs are unable to resolve any issue.

The ZPTCs could recommend works for providing facilities in the government schools, hospitals, offices, to construct roads in the mandals, to maintain sanitation and others.

They said that though the government decided to merge the works recommended by the ZPTCs into the NREGA works, there is no use as the ZPTCs do not have any funds to allocate.

They said that under the NREGA scheme, the ZPTCs could give funds to purchase material for the works they have recommended. The ZPTCs said that now the NREGA officials have been finalising the labour budget to the villages.