State of Urban Services in India's Cities: Spending and Financing - Hardcover

Sridhar, Kala Seetharam; Reddy, A. Venugopala

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198065388 ISBN 13: 9780198065388

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2011

Synopsis

With increasing population and expanding demand for urban infrastructure services, the capacities of local governments in many developing and newly industrialized countries are overburdened. Adequate infrastructure is not only necessary for increasing productivity but also raising the general quality of living.

Given the primacy of municipal finances and the importance of public service delivery for cities to become engines of economic growth, this book answers two questions: Does finance, or more specifically low expenditure, explain the state of poor service delivery? If the answer to the first question is yes, how can urban local bodies have access to greater resources to enable them to improve their public delivery? Using case studies of four cities-Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Jaipur, and Bangalore-that are representative of various regions in the country, this book examines the relationship between spending and services. More specifically, it examines the role of land as a revenue-generating source in India's cities.

About this title

About the Author:

Kala Seetharam Sridhar is Senior Research Fellow, Public Affairs Centre, Bangalore; A. Venugopala Reddy is Research Officer, Public Affairs Centre, Bangalore

Review:

"State of Urban Services in India's Cities . . . gives a short but succinct account of funding modalities for municipal services. The authors have produced a concise but useful tract on urban services in India. Sridhar and Reddy illustrate the general principles with rich statistical material gathered and collated on the four selected cities. Their work provides a simple and effective format for analyzing the finances and service delivery systems of cities." --State of Urban Services in India's Cities will prove to be useful, both to policy-makers and city administrators." --ASCI Journal of Management

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0198065388
• ISBN 13: 9780198065388
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 200