State Finance Commission chairman calls for authority, greater fiscal autonomy for local bodies

Local bodies should be given authority, greater fiscal autonomy and resources, Chairman of the Tamil Nadu government-constituted Seventh State Finance Commission (SSFC) K. Allaudin said on Thursday.

“If we could achieve this decentralisation, we will cease to be a mere Constitutional promise and we will become a lived reality of Indian democracy,” he said.

In his presidential address in the national seminar on ‘Strengthening Local Body Governance and Finances’ organised by the SSFC and the Madras Institute of Development Studies in Chennai, Mr. Allaudin said that no institution can exercise meaningful autonomy and discharge its functions without adequate and predictable financial resources. Local governments continue to depend substantially on transfers from the Union and State governments, he said.