A Study on the Municipal Finances of Small and Medium Towns in India

Objectives:

• Enhancing knowledge of existing revenue sources and expenditure patterns of ULBs;
• Exploring opportunities and potentials to enhance revenue sources and suggesting better fiscal management for ULBs;
• Exploring the extent to which citizens participate in the fiscal processes (priority setting during budget preparation, resource generation/augmentation and monitoring of fiscal performances).

Geographical Spread:

Key areas/components:

• For the case studies the following steps were involved:
• Collection of municipal finance data (mostly from municipal budget documents, and sometimes from financial records kept by the municipal officers or the State Government Directorates of Urban Development) for five most recent years of the ULB - the analysis has been carried out by both functional and financial heads
• Interviews of municipal functionaries and other citizens on financial priorities of the ULB, their opinion on level of service provision and the extent of people's participation in the budgeting process

Key outputs:

• The analytical reports were produced at three levels - detailed city-level reports for the towns covered as case studies, as well as consolidated reports at the state level and an integrated national report.
• Analysis of data to give the following statistical details: Extent of urbanization, State Finance commission, fiscal scenario, dependence on revenue grants, tax & non-tax incomes, capital account, extraordinary account, functional analysis, Accounting Systems and Budget Documents, corruption, Control of the State Government, Relationship between Elected wing and Executive wing, Citzens' Participation Urban Governance.
• Emerging issues & Recommendations

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