Ready to hold civic polls, efforts on to get due central funds: TN Minister

The Tamil Nadu government is ready to hold civic polls and steps are being taken to get Central funds due to the local bodies, Municipal Administration Minister S P Velumani told the state assembly Wednesday.

He recalled that though the elections were originally announced in 2016 they could not be held as the matter went to the court.

Velumani was replying to Leader of Opposition M K Stalin (DMK), who wanted to know if the government would hold polls to civic bodies without further delay.

The minister said a huge exercise of ward delimitation was carried out now after a gap of 22 years and the matter related to holding polls to local bodies was before the Supreme Court while it had also been heard by the Madras High Court.

"Amma's (late chief minister J Jayalalithaa's) government is for sure ready to hold civic polls," he asserted.

On Stalin quoting Union Panchayati Raj Minister Narendra Singh Tomar's statement in the Lok Sabha that grant for local bodies was not released to Tamil Nadu as the polls had not been held, Velumani said Tamil Nadu received Rs 8,531 crore as grant (for the period between 2015-19) out of about Rs 12,312 crore.

The grant related to two years 2017-18 and 2018-19, to the tune of about Rs 3,780, is to be released by the central government, he said.

Steps were being taken continuously to get the remaining amount, the Minister added.

Congress Legislature Party leader K R Ramasamy also raised the issue.