Ministry of Finance gives funds for million plus cities to four states

NEW DELHI: The Department of Expenditure under the Ministry of Finance, Government of India, has released funds to four Indian states worth ₹1,764 crore for the development of Million-Plus Cities/ Urban Agglomerations (MPC/UAs). The cities which have been granted funding are Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada of Andhra Pradesh (₹1.36 billion), Aurangabad, Greater Mumbai, Nagpur, Nashik, Pune, and Vasai-Virar City of Maharashtra (₹7.99 billion), Durg Bhilainagar and Raipur of Chhattisgarh (₹1.09 billion), and Agra, Allahabad, Ghaziabad, Kanpur, and Lucknow of Uttar Pradesh (₹7. 20 billion).

The 15^th Finance Commission has divided the urban local bodies into two groups to provide separate grants- urban agglomerations with a population of one million or more (excluding Delhi and Srinagar), and cities with less than one million population. More than two-thirds of the grants for the MPC/UAs, suggested by the Commission for solid waste management are allocated and the remaining one-third is for ambient air quality.

 The Finance Commission recommended Solid Waste Management grant component of the Million-Plus Cities Challenge Fund for Million-Plus cities/UAs is intended for enhancing drinking water quality including rainwater harvesting and recycling, sanitation, and achieving star ratings by the urban local bodies in Solid waste management in accordance with the approved City Action Plan and commitments made in the signed tripartite Memorandum of Understanding for the purpose.

State-wise amount of urban local bodies’ grant to the states in the financial year 2022-23 :