PANAJI
Goa’s 191 village bodies await over Rs 152 crore in grants from the Centre, allocated under the 15th Finance Commission and pending from 2022-23 to 2024-25. In addition, the Commission has earmarked another Rs 61 crore in grants for the ongoing financial year.
As per data from the Union Ministry of Panchayati Raj, under the 15th Finance Commission (2020-2026), the Centre has so far released only 42 per cent of the grants – Rs 154.23 crore against an allocation of Rs 368 crore. No funds have been released for the financial years 2023-24 and 2024-25, despite allocations of Rs 58 crore and Rs 62 crore, respectively.
In 2022-23, of the total allocated Rs 57 crore, only Rs 24.23 crore were released to the State as on December 2024. While the first instalment of Rs 14.54 crore was released in October, last year, the second instalment of that year, an amount of Rs 9.69 crore, was released in December.
Since then, there has been no allocation or release order issued for the State – even though several other States like Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu have received their first instalment of the current financial year in August, while some like Mizoram (2023-24), Gujarat (2024-25) and Arunachal Pradesh (2022-23) got their shares too.
“Centre takes into account various factors before releasing the grants. Despite several reminders and actions, the panchayats have consistently failed in providing utilisation certificates and account audits. Unless, this data is provided, there is no chance for release of funds,” sources explained.
At the very start of the commission, the Centre released Rs 75 crore to the State as tied and untied funds to the panchayat bodies in 2020-21 and another Rs 55 crore in 2021-22.
The finance commission stipulated that 90 per cent of the grants would be basic grants and 10 per cent would be performance grants (applicable from 2016-17). The grants provided were intended for supporting delivery of important basic services including water supply, sanitation, sewerage, and solid waste management, storm water drainage, maintenance of community assets, maintenance of roads, footpaths and street lighting, burial and cremation grounds and any other basic service within the functions assigned to panchayats under relevant legislations.
As reported earlier, the total allocation under the 13th, 14th and 15th Finance Commission for Goa was Rs 593.31 crore, that is from 2010-2026, of which only Rs 290.7 crore have been released to the State as on date.
During the 14th Finance Commission (2015-20), of the total Rs 133.76 crore towards rural local bodies, Rs 125.98 crore was released between 2015-20. The performance during the 13th Finance Commission (2010-15) remained very poor, with only 10 per cent of the funds being released that is Rs 10.49 crore of the total Rs 91.55 crore earmarked.
