New Delhi: In a bid to strengthen the delivery of basic services, the Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance, on Friday released an amount of Rs 1348.10 crore to six states for providing grants to the Urban Local Bodies. The states to which grants were released are Jharkhand (Rs 112.20 crore), Karnataka (Rs 375 crore), Kerala (Rs 168 crore), Odisha (Rs 411 crore), Tamil Nadu (Rs 267.90 crore) and Tripura (Rs 14 crore). The grants released are meant for non-million plus cities (NMPCs) including cantonment boards.
In a statement, the Finance Ministry said that the 15th Finance Commission in its report for the period from 2021-22 to 2025-26 has divided the Urban Local Bodies into two categories: million-plus urban agglomerations or cities excluding Delhi and Srinagar, and all other cities and towns with less than one million populations. The 15th Finance Commission has recommended separate grants for them.
Out of the total grants recommended by the Commission for NMPCs, 40 per cent is basic (untied) grant and the remaining 60 per cent is tied grant. Basic grants (untied) are utilized for location specific felt needs, except for payment of salary and incurring other establishment expenditure. On the other hand, tied grants for the NMPCs are released for supporting and strengthening the delivery of basic services.
Out of the total tied grant, 50 per cent is earmarked for ‘sanitation solid waste management and attainment of star ratings as developed by the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs (MoH&UA). The remaining 50 per cent is tied to ‘drinking water, rainwater harvesting and water recycling.’ The tied grants are meant to ensure availability of additional funds to urban local bodies over and above the funds allocated by the Centre and the state for sanitation and drinking water under various Centrally sponsored schemes and provide quality services to citizens.
In the current financial year, the Government of India has released a total amount of Rs 10,699.33 crore so far to the states as grants to the NMPCs. These grants are released by the Ministry of Finance on the recommendations of Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. /BI/
