The institutions (PRI) inOdisha received Rs 333 crore after the Centre released the first instalment of the untied (unconditional) grants for 2021-22 financial year as per recommendation of the15th Finance Commission.
The grant is meant for all the three tiers of PRIs gram panchayats, panchayat samitis and zilla parishads while the amount can be utilized for various preventive and mitigation measures to combat Covid-19 at the district, block and panchayat level among others.
As part of the state governments decentralized method of handling the pandemic, role of the PRIs was instrumental during the first wave of the Covid-19, especially in managing over 16,000 TMCs which were used to quarantine over 10 lakh migrants who had returned from various states during the nationwide lockdown.