Kalyan Singh announces sops for local bodies

LUCKNOW, DEC 24: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh announced sops worth over Rs 250 crore for local bodies today, just five days be...

LUCKNOW, DEC 24: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh announced sops worth over Rs 250 crore for local bodies today, just five days before the polling for 39 Legislative Council seats in the State.

The electorate for the seats comprises members of local bodies including village panchayats, area panchayats, district panchayats and municipal corporations.

Kalyan has earmarked seven per cent of the State’s total income from taxes for urban local bodies and four per cent for rural local bodies as per the State Planning Commission’s recommendations. Earlier, the Commission had recommended seven per cent and three per cent respectively for the urban and rural local bodies. The State Cabinet hiked the latter’s share by one per cent.

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According to Kalyan, the grant, which will be given directly to the local bodies, has been sanctioned with effect from April 1, 1997 to facilitate speedy development.

With this decision, the income of rural local bodies will increase 13-fold. Thus, the gram panchayats which got only Rs 20 crore during 1997-’98 will now get Rs 255 crores.

The State Government has also decided to take over the financial burden of electricity dues on local bodies till March this year. The Chief Minister claimed that the two decisions would benefit 60,000 rural local bodies and 683 urban ones.