Financial drought strains municipal bodies

As amenities in cities ccumble amid monsoon fury, INDIWAL DHASMANA looks at finances of major civic bodies to analyse why they are underprepared perennially

- INDIWAL DHASMANA

As am As the monsoon sweeps across India, it also brings an annual litany of urban chaos.Cities, in particular, bear the brunt of the fury of rains, though rural areas are far from immune.

Municipal corporations find themselves perennially underprepared for these seasonal crises. The reasons are manifold, but the most glaring is financial inadequacy. Overlapping responsibilities with state authorities further complicate their efforts.

Until 2019-20 (the latest year for which aggregate data is available), municipal corporations' revenue receipts accounted for less than 1 per cent of India's GDP. A significant portion of these revenues - nearly one-third comes from their own tax revenue (OTRS), with property taxes constituting almost half of this segment. Transfers from the central and state governments form a slightly larger share in revenue receipts than OTRS. As such, transfers and OTRS make up nearly two-thirds of municipal revenue receipts.