The policy of the State Govt. regarding financial
management of the Urban Local Bodies rests of two main
plans, i.e. strengthening the financial position of the
Urban Local Bodies and simultaneously protecting and
safeguarding the interest of citizens belonging to
economically vehicle sections. The State Govt. has laid
particulars emphasis on fiscal sustainability of the
Urban Development initiatives and has taken the lead in
designing steps on improve municipal management
including that of administrative restructuring and the
capacity building of the Urban Local Bodies. Two State
Finance Commissions setup by the State Govt. have
carried out elaborate studies on municipal finances and
recommended measures for enhanced municipal finances. In
this State the State Govt. has accepted the policy of
user charges against certain services in the municipal
areas and necessary rules for realization of charges for
supply of water have already in brought into force.
Necessary provision has also been made in the rules to
protect and safeguard the interest of the citizens
belonging to economically weaker section.
The policy of financial management of the
Urban Local Bodies is based on the following principles :
1. Resource Mobilization:
To strengthen the financial capability of urban local
bodies the State statutorily empowers the municipalities
for imposition and collection of taxes and non-tax
levies. As the ULBs are the local self governments it should
have a capability at to cover its day to day
expenditure for running the municipal administration. In
view of this fact in this state the ULBs are statutorily
empowered to impose different tax and non-tax revenue and
user charges for the municipal services provided.
Fund Generated from these sources
shall help the ULBs to meet the O&M Cost for civic
service and also to meet the ever-growing demand of such
services in the urban areas. The State Govt. is quite aware of the fact that the
urban local bodies are saddled with financial burden for
providing basic civic services like water supply,
drainage, sewerage, conservancy and if this problem is
not addressed to immediately, in the near future the
urban local bodies may not be able to maintain the
standard of these services. In this situation, the State
Government is encouraging the urban local bodies to
realise preferably the whole or at least a part, of the
operation and maintenance cost for different services
from the beneficiaries excepting the urban poor.
2. Maintenance of Accounts of Municipal fund:
The municipal funds in this
state are administered by befitting statutory
provisions. For the municipalities there exist the West Bengal Municipal (Finance & Accounting) Rules,
1999. Manner of maintenance of Accounts of Municipal
Funds along with relevant Forms, tender procedures,
preparation of budget estimate, payment of money, etc.have been detail in the said rules. Recently a
comprehensive amendment has been made in the said rules
to ensure maintenance of Municipal Accounts through “Double Entry Accrual Based System”.
