Over Rs. 500 cr funds of Autonomous District Councils pending due to late submission of UCs

Shillong, Feb 2: Over Rs 500 crore is due for release under the 15th Finance Commission to the three Autonomous District Councils (ADCs) due to late submission of utilization certificates (UCs). This was informed by the Deputy Chief Minister in-charge District Council Affairs (DCA) Prestone Tynsong after chairing a review meeting with the chief executive members (CEMs) of the three ADCs – KHADC, JHADC and GHADC – here on Friday.

Tynsong told reporters that the meeting was related to the late submission of UCs under the 15th Finance Commission grants extended to all the three ADCs. “Roughly, it is about Rs 500 plus crore which is again due for release to the district councils,” he said.

The deputy CM informed that the government has instructed all the three ADCs to submit the UCs by next week. “Then we will ultimately send it to the government of India as we are waiting again for the second instalment of the 15th Finance Commission to release to the respective ADCs,” he added.

Tynsong also shared that the problem behind the late submission of UCs was due to government of India introducing new initiatives like creation of portals, which takes a lot of time.

“Not only that, there are villages which are not at all reflected in the portal (as) when they try to upload it, it was rejected,” he said while adding “Again, we have issues of rural and urban – then some programmes was implemented by municipal board or by urban affairs department – these were the issue where ultimately needs to be well coordinated be it urban affairs department or C&RD department, be it PHE department or be it the district council and DCA department.”