Southern States - Karnataka

`Population increase putting local bodies under pressure'

By Our Staff Correspondent

Belgaum March 21. The State Finance Commission, headed by K.P. Surendranath, has come across a major problem — the increase of State's population by five per cent (as per Census 2001) vis-a-vis recommending the State Government on allocations to Panchayat Raj institutions and urban local bodies.

Mr. Surendranath said the increase in the population was substantial putting these bodies under pressure and forcing them to demand more funds to take up development works accordingly.

He was talking to presspersons here after holding a meeting with elected representatives and officials of the district at ZP meeting hall here on Thursday.

The President of the Belgaum Zilla Panchayat, Sunita Harijan, the Vice-President of the ZP, Parappa Jangwad, the Deputy Commissioner, Atul Kumar Tiwari, the CEO of the ZP, Anjum Parwez, K.R.Shashidhar and M.C.Kodli were present.

To queries, Mr. Surendranath said the Commission, which started functioning in June last, had held district-level meetings in 20 of the 27 districts. He would tour the other districts next month.

Subsequently, the data collected would be processed and the final report would, hopefully, be submitted to the Government before June 20.

A major problem, he observed, was on the habitual delay in release of funds to panchayat and urban bodies, which directly affected the pace of development. He would draw the attention of the Government and stress the timely release of funds.

Asked on Commission's suggestions to bring down the deficit in the State's annual budget, Mr. Surendranath said the subject was beyond the scope of the Commission. He did not rule out the possibilities of changes in distribution norms, which, however, were based on main indicators such as population and area. r. Surendranath complimented Mr. Tiwari and Mr. Parwez for showing good results in accomplishing their tasks with regard to revenue mobilisation in the district.He promised to recommend the Government to "encourage" in such cases where the district officials showed good results.

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