CHENNAI : For the fourth time in the last one year, the State government has approached the Centre for allocation of local body funds. Municipal Administration Minister S P Velumani met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Rural Development Minister Narendra Singh Tomar with these representations in New Delhi on Tuesday. The Centre has been hesitant to allocate local body funds as the State is yet to conduct the local body polls for over two years now. Velumani maintained in the memorandum that the polls could not be conducted because delimitation works were yet to be completed.
He, however, said steps were being taken to conduct the polls at the earliest.
The state government has sought over Rs 3,558.16 crore in funds specified by the 14th Finance Commission as basic and performance grants for urban and rural local bodies for the 2017-18 and 2018-19 financial years, according to a press note.
Velumani in the memorandum said the non-allocation of funds has caused public hardship.
State Advocate-General Vijay Narayanan has also lent his voice in the memorandum. “It may be pertinent to point out that these grants are released for the local bodies to provide facilities to ordinary citizens residing within the limits of local bodies and delay in conducting elections due to the facts mentioned above should not result in denial of basic needs of people and denial of fundamental rights of the citizens residing within the limits of the local bodies,” he said.