Financing Cities in India

How is management of municipal finances related to economic growth and productive employment in urban India? This book identifies Indian municipalities as among the weakest globally in terms of access to resources, revenue-raising capacity and fiscal autonomy. Advocating reforms in these sectors, it discusses the lack of clarity, consistency, adequacy and predictability in municipal taxation, user charging, inter-governmental transfers and development financing as key factors plaguing city finances. Topical and up-to-date, the book brings out the need to align particular types of revenues to particular categories of expenditure so that services can be delivered in a responsive, transparent and accountable manner. 

Prasanna K. Mohanty is Chair Professor of Economics at the University of Hyderabad, teaching Urban Economics and Transport Economics. Dr Mohanty is Honorary Executive Chair of National Institute of Urban Management, Adviser to Centre for Good Governance, Hyderabad, and a Director in the Board of Reserve Bank of India.An officer from the Indian Administrative Service, Dr Mohanty was Chief Secretary to the Government of Andhra Pradesh. He worked as the Mission Director, Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, Government of India; Director General, Centre for Good Governance, Hyderabad; Commissioner of metropolitan cities of Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam; and Vice-Chairman of Hyderabad Urban Development Authority.Dr Mohanty earned his MA and PhD in Economics from Boston University. He was Rockefeller Foundation Post-doctoral Fellow at Harvard University. He has authored Financing Cities in India: Municipal Reforms, Fiscal Accountability and Urban Infrastructure (2016) and Cities and Public Policy: An Urban Agenda for India (2014) and co-edited Urbanisation in India: Challenges, Opportunities and the Way Forward (2014), published by SAGE.