Urgent Urban Finance Reforms for Cities - the 'engines of economic growth' for India
In June 2013, I had written a blog highlighting the need for increasing urban finance autonomy to make cities having better infrastructure and better management. This was, in reference to the High Powered Executive Committee (HPEC) recommendations that have been made to effectively implement the decentralization promised in the 74th Amendment to the Constitution of India. For such financial reforms, there are two side pulls and pushes that are essential. One, where the urban local body, including its political and administrative set up, demand for it. And the other is, through the State Government, who makes the required changes to actually decentralize the cities and their financial management. There has been a long standing argument of the State Governments that urban local bodies have shown such a poor performance with regards to governance that adding to the financial revenue and giving financial autonomy will spell disaster, leading to higher levels of corruption and fund...