Shimla, March 5 (PTI) Himachal Pradesh has been sanctioned a grant of Rs 50 crore for setting up the Municipal Shared Services Centres (MSSCs) for National Data Centre under the 15th Finance Commission, Public Works Department Minister Vikramaditya Singh said on Wednesday.

In a statement issued here, he said that the state government has been actively working to strengthen municipal administration by modernizing urban local bodies.

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He said, "We were working to address critical challenges such as limited manpower, financial constraints and lack of technical support and the introduction of MSSCs would play a significant role in improving governance and service delivery across municipalities."

Singh further said that the MSSC would also help streamline essential services such as issuing birth and death certificates, trade licenses and grievance redressal, similar to the Passport Seva Kendras.

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Additionally, the centers would function as centralized processing hubs for accounting, payroll management and vendor payments, he added.

It would also facilitate doorstep services, such as tax collection, waste management and maintenance works, which would significantly improve efficiency in smaller urban local bodies, the statement read.

The PWD minister said the state government has been proactively engaging with the centre to secure funding for urban development initiatives.

The sanctioned grant is a testimony to these efforts and would be utilized to establish three clusters of urban local bodies (ULBs) within the state and ensure more efficient and technology-driven municipal administration to the people of the state, he said.

Singh said the Ministry has already sent the proposal for the release of funds to Himachal.

Apart from Himachal Pradesh the fund would also be released to Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland.

He said that to ensure effective implementation, the state would appoint a third-party organization of national repute to monitor and evaluate the project.

The MSSC model would reduce costs, optimize resource utilization and enhance service delivery which would benefit urban residents across the state, he noted.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)