Shillong, May 13: Members of district councils (MDCs) representing urban constituencies are facing a challenge in availing grant of 15th Finance Commission for MDC schemes as it is meant for rural areas only.
“If a village falls under a municipal area, it is not eligible to benefit from the scheme because it is meant for rural areas as per the guidelines of the 15th Finance Commission,” said KHADC executive member (EM) Powell Sohkhlet on Tuesday.
Such villages are present in both Shillong and Jowai.
However, the government has assured the KHADC of resolving the issue by convening a meeting of the Urban Affairs department and Community & Rural Development department.
Informing about his meeting with deputy chief minister in-charge District Council Affairs, Prestone Tynsong, the EM said, “Tynsong has assured to call a meeting of Urban Affairs and C&RD to resolve this issue.”
“When we received money from the 15th Finance Commission, the MDCs from urban areas were questioning how only MDCs from rural areas are getting to implement such schemes. Therefore, we are of the opinion that since the scheme is being implemented through the ADCs, all MDCs should get to implement the scheme in their respective constituencies,” Sohkhlet said.
Asked, the EM said earlier the scheme was implemented in both rural and urban areas.
However, this could not be done anymore as all information regarding implementation of the scheme has to be uploaded in the portal of Panchayati Raj Ministry, he said.
