The System of ULB Performance Grants is “Unaccountability by Design”

By Col Tejandra Pal Tyagi, Veer Chakra As per the recommendations of the 14th Finance Commission, the Government has decided to provide grants worth Rs.87,143 crore for urban local bodies (ULBs i.e Municipalities and Nagar Nigam) out of the central divisible pool of funds for the period 2015-20. Of this amount, 80% is called Basic Grant while the remaining 20% is Performance Grant. Performance Grants relate to regular audit of accounts, increase in own revenue sources and publishing service level benchmarks. This represents nearly a fourfold i…