New Delhi, Sep 8 (PTI) The Delhi High Court on Tuesday suggested to the Centre to directly give funds to the civic bodies in the national capital instead of routing it through the Delhi government.

"Instead of you (Centre) giving funds to the Delhi government and then Delhi government giving it to the MCDs, you give it directly to the corporations," the high court said.

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The suggestion from a bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan came during the hearing of an application moved by the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NrDMC) claiming that funds under various heads were due to be released to it by the Delhi government.

The corporation's contention has been opposed by the Delhi government.

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Earlier on August 18, the high court had directed that a meeting be held between the Centre, Delhi government and representatives of the corporations to find a solution to the financial difficulties faced by the three MCDs.

The high court had also said that a committee so constituted can look into the financial aspects of the corporations as well as the Delhi government which has claimed it has not received from the Centre over Rs 10,000 crore as its share of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) collection.

On Tuesday, Delhi government standing counsel Rahul Mehra and additional standing counsel Satykam told the bench that a meeting was held on September 4 between officials of the AAP government and the Centre.

They said that they need to seek instructions from the government with regard to what transpired in the meeting as its minutes were received only yesterday.

Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Chetan Sharma also said the same, but added that according to the minutes, the Delhi government has said it was cutting funding to the corporations by 57 per cent due to shortfall in its tax revenue by the same percentage in the current financial year.

The ASG questioned whether this cut was being applied to other Delhi government departments or only the corporations.

In response to this, Mehra said that while the Centre expects the Delhi government to perform its duties with regard to the corporations' funding, it was not performing its own duty to provide funds to the states/union territories.

After hearing the brief arguments, the high court adjourned the matter to October 19.

It also asked the ASG to advise the concerned ministry to take up this issue appropriately.

According to the minutes of the meeting held on September 4, Delhi government had also said that out of Rs1,529 crore payable to MCDs as first and second installments in the current financial year, an amount of Rs 1,400.97 crore has been sanctioned, and out of the sanctioned amount, Rs 1,187.67 crore has been released.  

In the meeting, the Centre said it was committed to release the Integrated Goods and Services Tax (IGST) settlement dues of Rs 3,200 crore and modalities are being worked out.  

It said the issue was likely to be taken care of in the supplementary budget.

"Regarding GST compensation of Rs 6,935 crore, there has been an overall shortfall in the GST collections, and a mechanism to allow states/ UTs to borrow from the market is being worked out," the Centre said in the meeting according to the minutes.

It also said that the UTs are not eligible for devolution of central taxes through the Finance Commission as per the Constitutional provisions, and the claim of the Delhi government in this regard was not valid.

The Centre also said in the meeting that central assistance to the tune of Rs 380.40 crore till the second quarter ending September 2020 has been released to the Delhi government under a Ministry of Home Affairs grant.

NrDMC, in its application, has alleged that Rs 90.60 crore payable as grant-in-aid under the sanitation/urban development head, for the first quarter ending June 30, has not been released yet and Rs 181 crore under the same head for the second quarter is also due.

NrDMC has said that the funding was meant for payment of salaries of ''safai karamchaaris'' and sanitation activities.

The application has been filed in a pending writ petition by one Rahul Birla seeking directions to the Delhi government and the municipal corporations to pay the salaries with arrears of sanitation workers employed by them.

In its application, NrDMC has said that expenditure towards the salary till May 2020, sanitation services and providing PPE kits, gloves, masks, sanitizers to the workers has been incurred by the corporation from its own internal resources, in the absence of any amount being released by the Delhi government.

(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)