Multiple finance and local self-government : the Indian experience

The thesis is concerned with the problem of municipal finance in India. It considers the literature on municipal finance since Independence in 1947. In particular the thesis looks at the case study of municipal finance in Orissa state for the period 1980 to 1985. A number of questions are addressed. A prime issue is the nature and problems of minicipal finance. Since municipal government in the modern sense was established by British rulers in India the question arises as to what are the theories of decentralization which have been put forth by scholars in Britain. An issue here is the question of whether the theories of decentralization advanced by the British scholars arc applicable to the Indian situation, and the degree to which there were theories of decentralization in India. A part of this philosophy was the government's attitude towards rural local government and the problems of finance and of self-government this gave rise to. An important part of the analysis is the extent to which the present problems of municipal finance derive from colonial rule. This has persisted into a problem of the constitutional status of urban government in the overall governmental structure. A major theme of the thesis is the nature of intergovernmental financial relations and the extent to which the problems relate to the internal resource structure and external sources of both state and local governments. This in turn means that the problems of urban bodies have to be seen in the context of industrialisation and urbanization. Participation is a major concern in this analysis, since local self-government is meaningless without both adequate resources and people's involvement. The thesis deals with the problems of municipal finance in India as revealed by independent Enquiries and by scholars. Then it analyses the theories of local government in Britain since the 19th century. It considers the Indian model of decentralization. It tries to show the dominating role of the central government in the Indian Union which is a legacy of colonial rule. After Independence, the objectives of a welfare state with its democratic goals of ensuring social and economic equality and justice to the people through development planning and equitable distribution of national wealth to all and providing the basic human needs has given more importance to rural development. As a result the urban sector has been neglected in the overall governmental structure and there has been deterioration in the municipal services. In the name of efficiency of services, municipal functions and resources have been transferred to the state governments or to special purpose bodies. Thus it can be concluded that participatory local self-government in urban India has been subsumed to national goals and planning: local administration has replaced local self-government in any meaningful sense.