Research

Fiscal Architecture, Fund Flow and Utilisation

In the federal fiscal architecture in India, the issues relating to institutions and processes of resource mobilisation, allocation and utilisation at different levels of governance are complex. Moreover, the changes in these institutions and processes over the years have made this domain of policy discourse even more inaccessible for a large section of people. Hence, one of CBGA’s key objectives is to demystify these complexities and inform our larger audience about the changes in the government finance systems and processes.

CBGA’s research in this domain focuses on Union-State sharing of resources, fiscal health and budgetary priorities of State Governments as well as fiscal decentralisation in the country, focusing on budgets of local governments.

The inability of some of the State Governments in expediting budgetary expenditure in development sectors and the poor quality of spending in some of the development schemes have emerged as major challenges before our policymakers over the last decade. Our research tries to identify the systemic weaknesses as well as the institutional and procedural constraints, which need to be addressed so as to enable the States to effectively utilise greater magnitudes of budget outlays in the development sectors.