Telangana Municipal Administration and Urban Development Minister KT Rama Rao asked Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to release pending dues under the Finance Commission, amounting to Rs 1,433 crore.
The Minister wrote a letter to Sitharaman and said the fifteenth Finance Commission has recommended that the grants amounting to Rs 468 Crore to Hyderabad, with a million plus population, and Rs 421 crore to cities with population less than one million, be released in two equal instalments from June 2020 to October 2020. KTR said the the recommendation had already been accepted by the Union Government and an ‘Action Taken Report’ to this effect was also placed in the Parliament.
The Minister stated that the grant to non-million plus cities has been split into four instalments, in contravention of the recommendation of the Finance Commission, and the first instalment amounting to Rs 105.25 crore was released on May 19, 2020. The non-release of statutorily mandated Finance Commission grants and Covid-19 induced shortfall in the state’s own revenues has handicapped Telangana, the Minister said in the letter.
He also said the state was denied its rightful entitlement in the grants to Urban Local Bodies as the Rs 2,502.90 crore released by the Centre was not as per the recommended amount by the fourteenth finance commission – of Rs 2,711.12 crore. Thus, there was a shortfall of Rs 208.22 crore, he added.
“The state had fulfilled all conditions attached to the performance grant of Rs 677.79 crore. But the amount released was only Rs 235.81 crore, with a shortfall of Rs 441.98 crore. Thus, the state has been denied Rs 650.20 crore of the statutory grant to urban local bodies,” he said, adding that the full amount had been released to some other states.
KTR asked Sitharaman to arrange for the immediate release of all pending dues under the Finance Commission – a total of Rs 1,433.95 crore, including the overdue first instalment of grants.
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