Rs 468 cr financial devolution recommended for Haryana

Chandigarh, Feb 29 (UNI) The financial devolution of Rs 468.50 crore has been recommended for Haryana for the year 2008-09, including Rs 304.52 crore for Panchayati Raj Institutions and Rs 163.98 crore for urban local bodies through the mechanism of global sharing of state own tax revenues.

''This devolution is over and above the funds already being transferred to these bodies through state excise, Local Area Development Tax (LADT) proceeds and grants of 12th Finance Commission,'' said Mr A N Mathur, IAS (Retd), Chairman, Third State Finance Commission, Haryana.

He was presenting the Interim Report of the Commission for the period up to 2008-09 to Haryana Governor A R Kidwai at the Raj Bhavan here today.

Mr Mathur explained that resource base of these bodies was very poor as compared to the vast responsibilities cast on them.

As such these bodies needed larger funds for discharging their constitutional duties of providing minimum acceptable levels of civic amenities.

He said the third State Finance Commission was constituted by the state government to recommend sharing of state revenues with the rural and urban local bodies and also to suggest measures of augmentation of their internal resources.

He further informed that the state government had requested the Commission to submit its interim report as larger funds were required to be transferred to the Panchayats and the Municipalities for strengthening of rural and urban infrastructure.

After receiving the interim report, Governor A R Kidwai noted very carefully the basic contents of the report in regard to fiscal transfers and particularly the functional transfers to the Panchayati Raj Institutions.

He observed that the basic objectives of constitutional amendments of functional and financial autonomy of these bodies had not been achieved in many of the states including Haryana.

The Governor elaborated on the main planks of the democratic decentralisation and advised the Chairman and Members of the Commission to lay down the general principles in their final report on functional empowerment of these institutions so that the citizens and the elected representatives of these bodies have a feeling of direct involvement in policy making and programme implementation at the gross-root level.

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