The Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance has released an amount of over 685 crore to four States for providing grants to the Urban Local Bodies, ULBs. Out of this, 494 crore rupees has been released to Uttar Pradesh, over 110 crore rupees to Gujarat, over 74 crore rupees to Jharkhand and over 6 crore rupees to Mizoram.
Grants for Urban Local Bodies have been released as per the recommendations of the 15th Finance Commission. They are aimed at improving basic civic services including fulfilling location specific felt needs. These grants are intended for smaller Non-Million Plus cities including cantonment Boards.
The 15th Finance Commission 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 population Non-Million Plus cities. Out of the 15th Finance Commission recommended grants for Non-Million Plus cities, 50 per cent is basic untied grant and the remaining 50 per cent as tied grant.
Basic grants can be utilised for location specific felt needs except for salary or other establishment expenditure. The tied grants are to be utilized for drinking water including rainwater harvesting and recycling and solid waste management.
The grants are meant to ensure provision 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 the Centrally Sponsored Schemes.
The States are required to transfer the grants to the ULBs within 10 working days of receipt from the Centre. Any delay beyond 10 working days requires the State Governments to release the grants with interest.
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