THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Opposition and Finance Minister on Thursday locked horn over the allocation and spending of plan funds for the local bodies in the state. KC Joseph, who moved an adjourned motion in the assembly, said the Finance department has allowed bills only till March 23 in the last fiscal and no bills were accepted after March 27, resulting in the revision of annual plan fund projects, effectively delaying their implementation.
The treasury curbs imposed by the finance department have also made things worse with a good number of projects spilling over to next term which created a crisis in the functioning of the local bodies, he said. According to Joseph, as the state government failed to provide money for the bills submitted in the last fiscal, an order was issued including the bills of the last fiscal in the current fiscal.
It is not possible to mobilise funds for the spillover projects of the previous fiscal form the plan fund of the current fiscal, he said. However, Finance Minister Thomas Isaac refuted the allegation saying the opposition charges were born out of the misunderstanding between spillover and carryover. As per law, 20% of the carryover is allowed in the plan fund projects. For all carryovers above 20 per cent, they would be considered special cases by the department, he said.