Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government has warned all urban local bodies that if they fail to submit utilisation certificates (UC) of various grants given to them to undertake projects, their officials would not be paid salaries.

"It would not be possible for the housing and urban development department to release salaries of the employees of urban local bodies (ULB)," said an official letter issued to all urban bodies.

In a letter to all the commissioners of all municipal corporations, executive officers of all the municipalities and notified area councils, housing and urban development secretary G. Mathivathanan has expressed his concern over the non-utilisation of funds and non-submission of the UCs.

"Submission of the UC is linked with the release of further funds by the Centre and other agencies. Unless and until the UCs are received from you, it is impossible on part of the department to claim for further release of eligible funds. Non-submission of the UC by you deprives the ULBs of the state from getting grant from the Centre and other agencies," he said.

Mathivathanan said that in spite of repeated reminders, the status of submission by the ULBs had not been improving. "It is now contemplated that no further funds, including salary component of the ULBs, will be released till the pending UCs are submitted even though funds are sanctioned," he said.

The department is worried that the UC against grants released by the department for various projects have been pending for a number of years. The finance department and accountant-general have time and again expressed their reservation against the non-submission of the UCs.

Earlier, the accountant-general had slammed the Odisha government for its failure to provide the UCs amounting to thousands of crores of rupees it had received from the Centre in the past decade. The accountant-general had also hinted that the delay in submitting the UCs were also prone to fraudulent expenditure, transactions, diversions of funds and creation of fake assets.