Rs 4608 crore grant released for local bodies

NEW DELHI: The Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance, Government of India, on Wednesday, March 31, released the fund of Rs 4,608 crore to the states for providing assistance to the local bodies. The grants are released for both Rural Local Bodies (RLBs) and Urban Local Bodies (ULBs). RLBs will be provided the grant of Rs 2660 crore and ULBs will be provided Rs 1948 crore on the recommendation of 15^th Finance Commission.

In the last financial year, the Ministry of Finance released a total amount of Rs 87,460 crore to the states for their local bodies in which Rs 60,750 crore were for the RLBs and 26,710 crore were released for the ULBs. The RLBs grant was meant all the tiers of panchayat i.e. village, block and district level as well as the areas of 5^th and 6^th schedule in the state.

The ULB grants are provided in the two categories of grants for Million Plus cities and grants for Non-Million Plus cities. Million plus cities were provided the grant of Rs 8257 crore and the Non-Million Plus cities were provided Rs 18,354 crore from the Ministry in the last financial year. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change will monitor and evaluate the progress and recommend the distribution of grants to the state. The grants in to the Million Plus cities have also been linked to improving the conservation, supply and management of water and proper solid waste management. For this component, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs is the nodal ministry and is given the development of city wise and year-wise targets and recommend distribution of grant to the cities.

In the Non-Million Plus cities, 50 per cent of the total will be the basic grant and the rest of it will tied to drinking water and solid waste management. This amount will be given in addition to the funds provided for Centrally-sponsored Schemes such as Swachh Bharat Mission, Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), etc.