Articles by M A Oommen

The COVID-19 pandemic has provocatively challenged the extant paradigm of development whose theoretical underpinning is derived from the neoclassical ideology of market-mediated growth. The Indian context of the pandemic is examined, and a reimagining of the development path for a more rational and egalitarian democracy is argued for. Some of the postulates of Thomas Piketty outlined in his Capital and Ideology are brought home as a pointer to stimulate thinking by all, especially the social scientists.

Local governments have become the third tier of governance in Indian federal polity. For decentralisation to be successful, fiscal systems that make governments accountable to their citizens are needed. The absence of consistent data and reporting has made evaluating decentralisation difficult. In this paper, we utilise data from a well-designed sample of gram panchayats in Kerala to document fiscal management systems, extent of decentralisation of revenues, and local governments’ response to raising revenues using local capacity. Our findings suggest that the pressure to spend on welfare and development activities has outstripped development of revenue. However, there is some evidence that local governments have untapped revenue potential in their property tax. Importantly, we also find that state and federal government support vis-à-vis intergovernmental grants is not crowding out revenue mobilisation.

The subject of local governments has not been comprehensively treated by the Fourteenth Finance Commission. The implications of the new inter se distribution formula of the commission's award for local governments have not been thought through and important conditionalities have been changed or watered down.

As a multilayered federal system, India needs a comprehensive and coordinated intergovernmental transfer system that includes the third tier as a dynamic component. This is particularly important because of the multiplicity of channels and the bewildering typology of transfer arrangements that exist today. This article points out that the Fourteenth Finance Commission's real challenge is to persuade state governments to carry on with the task of democratic decentralisation, while spelling out some issues it may consider to improve public fi nance and local democracy.