Our Correspondent
Kohima, Nov. 6 (EMN): The ministry of Finance has released tied grant of INR 5005.25 as first instalment for non-million plus cities (NMPC) to 28 states, including Nagaland, for the year 2020-21, as recommended by the 15th Finance Commission.
It may be mentioned that cities having less than one million population falls under the category of non-million plus cities.
The tied grant for NMPC to Nagaland state was INR 1500 lakh, as first instalment for the year 2020-21.
‘While INR 2,414.50 crore has been released for million plus cities/agglomerations, INR 5,005.25 crore has been released for non-million plus cities,’ the office of the union Finance minister said in a tweet on November 5.
The ministry has directed the states to make allotment of grants on population basis for the cantonment boards within their territories.
In case of non-availability of State Finance Commission (SFC) recommendation for distribution within a particular category, the allocation should be on the basis of population and area in the ration of 90:10, it stated.
‘The states (state Finance departments) shall transfer grants-in-aid directly to all urban local bodies within 10 working days of receipts from the union government without any deduction. Any delay beyond 10 working days will require the state governments to release the same with interest as per the effective rate of interest on market borrowings/state development loans for the previous year,’ it added.
The tied grants are to be utilised by the local bodies for drinking water (including rain water harvesting and recycling) and solid waste management as recommended by 15th Finance Commission.
Further, the release added that the local body grant will be governed as per the provisions in the operational guidelines issued on the subject and recommendations contained in chapter 5 of 15th Finance Commission report for the year 2020-21 on the subject.