By Express News Service THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The KPCC has asked the state government for special grants to local self-government to help them fully utilise the plan fund for the current fiscal. KPCC president Mullappally Ramachandran and former minister for rural development K C Joseph said the government direction to the LSGs to submit a revised plan for the current fiscal would scuttle their functioning. “The government has said that the last fiscal’s bills which were kept in queue and spill over work bills will be honoured from this year’s plan fund. The total amount would come around half of the plan fund of the current fiscal. The local self-government have now been asked to revise their plans for the current fiscal accordingly,” Mullappally said. “The usual practise is to honour all bills submitted until March 31 of a fiscal from the plan fund of that fiscal itself. But frequent restrictions were imposed on bill payments in 2018-19 fiscal starting from January 2019. Bills submitted in the last week of the fiscal were put in queue. The government has ignored its Constitutional obligation to honour the bills from the plan fund of the same fiscal,” Joseph said. The Congress has now demanded the state government to provide a special grant of Rs 834 crore to the panchayats and Rs 564 crore to the municipal corporations. Additionally, the party has also demanded the government to honour the bills of spillover works. The Congress has announced protest programmes starting with an assembly march of people’s representatives in the local bodies ruled by the UDF. On July 10, protest dharnas will be held at panchayats and municipalities.

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