Chandigarh, November 20: The 15th Finance Commission of the Central government has released grants worth ₹332 crore to Gram Panchayats, Panchayat Samiti and Zila Parishads in rural areas of Punjab, aimed at funding various development and sanitation projects. These allocations are part of the regular, formula-based allocations of the Central government, and not any specific scheme of the Punjab state government. Reacting to this, Paramjit Singh Kainth, vice president of the Scheduled Caste Morcha of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Punjab, accused Punjab Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema of “fraud” and “outright lies” about the source of these funds and said that state government ministers are misleading the public by describing these funds as their government’s achievements.

Kainth clarified that these funds are provided directly to Gram Panchayats, Panchayat Samiti and Zila Parishads in the ratio of 70:20:10 by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led central government. He stressed that the use of these funds is monitored through a digitalised, transparent system.