'Postponement of polls depriving JK of thousands of crores'

The Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party (JKNPP) today said that the state was being deprived of thousands of crore rupees for development of municipal areas due to the repeated postponement of elections to the urban local bodies.
"The repeated postponements of the Urban Local Bodies elections in J&K during the last few years have deprived the state of thousands of crores of rupees for development of Municipal areas which has been withheld by the Central government due to the failure of the state government to constitute the elected municipal bodies", Chairman of JKNPP, Harsh Dev Singh said today.
He claimed that Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed's recent statement that the elections to rural local bodies would be held from April onwards to be followed by those to the urban local bodies elections amply conveyed that the government doesn't intend to hold municipal elections during the current financial year.

"Not holding of ULB elections during 2015-16 would further deprive the state of hundreds of crores for development of such municipal bodies which comprised 74 municipal committees, six municipal councils and two municipal corporations", Singh said.
While hailing the recent decision of the 14th Finance Commission to enhance the funding for local bodies in the state, Singh said that the said commission had proposed Rs 4,161 crore for the state which included Rs 3,117.36 crore for the RLBs and Rs 1,044.51 crore for ULBs with a precondition that funds would be released only if elected local bodies were constituted as a measure of democratic decentralisation.

"The 14th finance commission had provided a grant of Rs 125.30 crore in the first instance for 2015-16 which however could be availed only if the elected municipal bodies were in place during the current year", Singh said.