State Govt. shall keep on funding Zila Parishad and Panchayat Samitis: Himachal CM

Dharamshala, March 24, 2017: Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh today said , “ though the 14th Finance Commission had withheld the grants to Zilla Parishad and Panchayat Samitis, the state government would fund them out of its own resources and a budget of Rs 42 crore had been proposed for this fiscal.” He was addressing a meeting of Congress Party at Swarghat in district Bilaspur.
CM said "I would certainly take up the matter with the Union government to amend the recommendations of 14th Finance Commission to pave way for devolution of funds to Panchayat Samitis and Zila Parishads."
He said that the people of Himachal Pradesh always believed in policies of the Congress Party and whatever development had been done so far it was due to successive Congress regimes. Even the inaccessible areas were connected with the roads and provided electricity, schools were opened in the remotest areas of the state and as of today there were 119 degree colleges catering to the higher educational needs of the students. 42 degree colleges were opened during the last four years of the present government regime. When Himachal was formed there were hardly 280 kilometres of roads which were more than 37000 kilometres at present, said the Chief Minister.
Shri Virbhadra Singh said, “the New Mukhya Mantri Sadak Yojna had been started to connect left out habitations with roads.”
He said that three medical colleges were opened in the state and the one at Nahan had started functioning and the Medical College at Chamba would soon start functioning. “The process of forest clearance for Hamirpur Medical College was in the pipeline,” he said. He said the per capita income of the people had increased to 1,47,277 which itself boasts that the people of the State were well off.