Shillong, June 27: BJP Tura MDC Bernard Marak on Thursday apprised the Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong that Municipalities violated the guidelines of the 15th Finance Commission and the decision of the 15th Finance Commission Co-ordination Committee formed on February 2, 2024 which decided that the CEM would convene a meeting to work out details of plans/projects, proposals and procedures on implementation of the commission.
In a letter to the deputy chief minister, Marak said the Municipal CEOs did not attend the meeting scheduled on June 27 at the CEM’s chamber which can be termed as a humiliation to the office of the CEM and the authority of the GHADC. “Municipalities seem to be forgetting that they are functioning in the Sixth Schedule area.
The Finance Commission guidelines and decision taken by the Co-ordination Committee were also violated and dishonoured by the Municipalities. The decisions taken in a meeting held on February, 2, 2024 and on May 8, 2024 on installments of the Fifteenth Finance Commission were violated by the Municipalities as they submitted the proposals and implemented some funds without the knowledge of the GHADC which was against the norms”, Marak said.
The Co-ordination Committee decided certain conditions on the implementation of the funds and subsequently a letter was forwarded by the Director of the Urban Affairs but when inquired in GHADC, no one was aware of the funds already utilised by the Municipalities, he said
The reply to RTI query revealed that projects were already implemented without the knowledge of GHADC and when the facts were provided to GHADC, the CEM of GHADC invited the CEOs of all Municipalities who were implementing the funds under Fifteenth Finance Commission for the Urban Local Bodies to attend a meeting in June 27 but none of them turned up. This was a humiliation to the chair of the CEM, he said.
“I would like to state that, on 8th May 2024, it was decided that the Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) shall convene a meeting with the representatives of ADCs under the urban areas at the level of CEM/Dy. CEM. CEM took the initiative to convene a meeting to work out the details of plans and projects, proposals and procedures as per rules and regulation but CEOs avoided the meeting.
It was decided by the co ordination committee that the urban department and MDCs of the urban areas were to formulate plans of actions. None of these were followed by Municipalities which were implementing the Fifteenth Finance Commission in place of the Urban department. Municipality has already forwarded the proposals without consulting the MDC of the urban area and before consulting with GHADC. The proposals made by Municipal boards are mostly outside the Municipal’s scheduled area. Some of the proposed projects are duplicated while others are over estimated. People of urban areas would not benefit out of it. Therefore Sir, I wrote a letter prior to this few days ago to the Director (Boro) and a copy of which was forwarded to you through this mail but there was no response till date”, Marak said.
“Hence, I humbly request you to kindly look into this matter immediately and to cancel all proposals forwarded by the Municipality boards without consulting the MDCs of the urban areas and GHADC and also to stop all payments for now till the matter is sorted out'” Marak said.
