Local bodies in Telangana suffering due to lack of funds, says BJP MLA

Addressing a press conference here on Monday, Harish Babu alleged that due to the incompetence of the Congress government, the local bodies in the State were suffering from lack of funds.

Hyderabad: Accusing Congress government of withholding the funds allocated to local bodies, Sirpur MLA Palvai Harish Babu alleged that governance in rural and urban local bodies had been severely affected due to non-release of funds by the State government.

Addressing a press conference here on Monday, Harish Babu alleged that due to the incompetence of the Congress government, the local bodies in the State were suffering from lack of funds. “Urban and rural local bodies are completely out of funds. There are no funds for maintenance of roads and sanitation in the local bodies,”he said.

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Stating that the State government was withholding the funds released by the Centre, he said in a normal practice the State had to come up with a matching grant and release the entire amount to the village panchayat, but as the State was not transferring funds to the panchayats, the Centre had stopped further transfers as it was not getting utilisation certificates.

With the onset of monsoon season there was a surge in cases of seasonal diseases in the rural areas, but since the gram panchayats did not have funds they were not able to take up sanitation works, he said, adding that in many villages of Komaram Bheem Asifabad district, people were bedridden with chikungunya and viral fever due to lack of sanitation.

Coming down heavily on Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy for his failure to release funds to local bodies, the BJP MLA alleged that the Chief Minister was busy in poaching MLAs from rival parties and was not concentrating on administration.