The Scale of Municipal Finances is Inadequate : Daily Current Affairs

Relevance: GS-2: Devolution of Powers and Finances up to Local Levels and Challenges Therein.

Key Phrases: ULBs, IIHS, 74th CAA 1992, Article 243-P to 243-ZG, A 243-W, A 243-Y; IGTs, Own Tax Revenue, Own Non-Tax revenue, User Charges;

Context

  • The Financial Empowerment of ULBs (Urban Local Bodies) is necessary for the practical realisation of democracy at the grassroots level.
  • Recently, the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) analysed data from 80 ULBs across 24 States between 2012-13 and 2016-17 to understand ULB finance and spending, and found some key trends.

Key Highlights

What are ULBs?

  • These are the local self-government at the City/ town level.
  • 74th Constitutional Amendment Act 1992 provided constitutional status to ULBs. It added Part IX-A to the constitution.
    • Articles 243-P to 243-ZG deal with the ULBs.
    • Article 243-W specifies subjects which have been delegated to ULBs by the constitution, these are explicitly mentioned in Schedule 12.
    • Article 243-Y deals with the provision of the creation of the State Finance Commission to devolve grants.
  • The Act provided for the constitution of 3 types of municipalities in every state
    • A Municipal Corporation
      • For a larger urban area.
    • Municipal Council
      • For a smaller urban area.
    • Nagar Panchayat
      • For a transitional area.
  • There are 8 types of ULBs
    • Municipal Corporation
    • Municipality
    • Notified Area Committee
    • Town Area Committee
    • Cantonment Board
    • Township
    • Port Trust
    • Special Purpose Agency

Sources of Revenue and avenues of expenditure for ULBs and their trend

  • The ULBs’ key revenue sources are taxes, fees, fines and charges, and transfers from Central and State governments.
  • The Transfers from Central and State governments are known as IGTs (Inter-Governmental Transfers).
    • Transfer from Central Government
      • Decided by Union Finance Commission and are generally awarded for the interventions as per specific reforms.
    • Transfer from State Government
      • In the form of Grants in aids and devolution of states’ collection of local taxes.
  • ULBs’ own revenue includes revenue from taxes on property and advertisements.
  • ULBs’ non-tax revenue consists of user charges and fees from building permissions and trade licencing.
  • The share of ULBs' own revenue and non-tax revenue to total revenue measures ULBs’ fiscal health and decides its autonomy.
  • Class I-A cities (population of over 50 lakh) are more self-dependent than Class I-B (population of 10 lakh-50 lakh) and Class I-C (population of 1 lakh-10 lakh) cities, which are more dependent on IGTs.

Issues/Concerns with Municipal Finances

  • Lack of Self-dependency for revenues
    • The ULBs’ own sources of revenue were less than half (47%) of their total revenue.
      • Own Tax revenue is 29%
      • Own non-Tax revenue is 18%
    • ULBs lacked revenue buoyancy as their share in GDP of own revenue was only 0.5% for the five-year period.
    • Property Tax contributed to a meagre 0.15% of the GDP.
      • It is the single largest contributor to ULBs’ Own Revenue.
      • For the developing country and developed countries, it has been observed at around 0.6% and 1% of GDP respectively.
  • High dependency on IGTs
    • From 2012-13 to 2016-17, IGTs accounted for about 40% of the ULBs’ total revenue.
    • Despite this, the scale of IGTs in India remained at around 0.5% of GDP, which is far lower than the international average of 2% to 5% of GDP.
  • Variation in state of finances depending upon the size of the city
    • Tax revenue is the largest revenue source for larger cities, while smaller cities are more dependent on grants.
    • For Class I-A cities
      • External revenue dependency gradually reduced over time, from around 27% in 2012-13 to about 15% in 2016-17.
    • For Class I-B and Class I-C cities
      • Own Revenues (Tax + Non-tax) remained stagnant, despite the increase in the areas of these cities.
  • Operations and Maintenance (O&M) expenses have increased but still remain inadequate
    • The share of O&M expenses in ULBs’ total revenue expenditure increased from about 30% in 2012-13 to about 35% in 2016-17.
    • As per the High-Powered Expert Committee for estimating the investment requirements for urban infrastructure services, O&M Expenses incurred in 2016-17 covered 1/5th of the requirement forecast.
    • The non-tax revenues were short of the O&M expenditure by around 20%
      • this contributed to the increasing revenue deficit in ULBs.

Way Forward

  • To increase the Tax revenue
    • The base for collection of property taxes must be increased.
  • To increase non-tax revenue
    • Increased availability of land resources to the businesses and extracting user charges will shore up non-tax revenue.
  • Meeting O&M Expenses
    • Cost recovery for services such as water supply, solid waste management, transportation and wastewater management must be ensured through user charges to ensure reduced pressure on the revenue budget.
  • Stabilizing IGTs and using them as a means to ensure fiscal discipline
    • Revenue assigned to ULBs from the State governments must be increased.
      • Atma Nirbhar Bharat Yojana has a provision for rewarding states for the empowerment of ULBs.
    • A share of the State and Centre’s GST proceeds must be allocated to ULBs
      • This will provide a cushion to ULBs which will be taking steps to decrease their dependency on IGTs.
    • IGTs can also incentivise ULBs to deliver better service quality and maintain fiscal discipline.
      • 15th Finance commission has recommended mandatory submission of audited accounts before disbursing grants.
    • IGTs should also incentivize the ULBs which come up with their own market-based loan instruments.
      • Bangalore MC was the 1st MC in India to launch a municipal bond (1997).
      • In Dec 2020, Lucknow issued a municipal bond.

Conclusion

  • Growing fiscal deficits, constraints in tax base expansion, and weakening of institutional mechanisms that enable resource mobilisation are a few challenges to the financial health of the ULBs. But the same can be countered by increasing IGTs, strengthening ULBs to extract User changes and shoring their revenues.

Source: The Hindu

Mains Question:

Q. Comment about the financial condition of ULBs. What are the challenges and what more can be done to financially empower them?