Guwahati: Asam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi today urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to consider Special Grants-in-Aid (GIA) to local bodies within the Sixth Schedule Areas.
In a letter to Modi, Gogoi said the GIA to the Sixth Schedule Areas together with general basic grant taking population as the basis, as was done in case of the 13th Finance Commission Award, would go a long way in fulfilling the aspirations of the people living in these sensitive areas.
The Chief Minister said the exclusion of the local bodies in the Sixth Schedule Areas, including BTC from the operation of the 73rd and 74th amendments vide Article 243M and 243ZC respectively has constitutionally deprived them of the requisite financial support unlike their counterparts in general areas.
Gogoi said though the 14th Finance Commission had recommended general basic grants and performance grants of Rs 6,387.11 crore to rural and urban local bodies for the period 2015-16 to 2019-20, it had deprived the local bodies in Sixth Schedule Areas of substantial amount from the award of the Central Finance Commission.
In this connection, he cited the instance of the 13th Finance Commission awarding some specific grants to the Sixth Schedule Areas in spite of constraints of applicability of the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments.
Gogoi regretted that though Assam Government had strongly urged the 14th Finance Commission for an amount of Rs 2,118 crore for infrastructure and core services of Sixth Schedule Areas, it did not award any fund for these areas despite recommendation to the Union Government "to consider a larger, sustained and more effective direct intervention for
the upgradation of administration as well as development of the areas".
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