Moneycontrol | Housing ministry releases City Finance Rankings, launches City Beauty Competition

Dec 28,2022

Union Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri, on December 28, released draft guidelines for a new ranking system of cities based on their financial performance. The move is aimed at evaluating, recognising, and rewarding urban local bodies (ULBs) on the basis of their strengths across three financial parameters ― resource mobilisation, expenditure performance, and fiscal governance systems, besides their beautification.

The cities have until January 15 to submit their comments before the guidelines are finalised and issued by January 30.

The city finance rankings will evaluate and assess each participating ULB on 15 indicators and metrics across three key municipal finance criteria, which, put together, will help identify the most financially sustainable and accountable cities.

"India has embarked on the most ambitious plan for urban rejuvenation undertaken anywhere in the world. A healthy sense of competition gives the best-performing cities a sense of pride," the minister said at the launch event.

Puri said that the thought came from Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he met the chief secretaries of all the states in June this year and outlined the vision of a pan India ranking of cities to foster healthy competition among municipal bodies in the area of finance.

Growing realisation among local bodies that healthy finances and transparent procedures can push up the value of land, is the beauty of this venture, he said.

On the ‘City Beauty Competition’, the Minister said that this has been launched to encourage and recognise the transformational efforts made by cities and wards in India towards creating beautiful, innovative and inclusive public spaces.

"The city finance rankings will evaluate and assess each participating ULB on 15 indicators and metrics across three key municipal finance criteria, which, put together, will help in identifying the most financially-sustainable and accountable cities," said Manoj Joshi, Secretary of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.

He noted that currently, municipal revenues in India are less than 1 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP), with high dependence on inter-governmental transfers, and own revenues accounting for less than half the total revenue of ULBs.

"Robust finances of ULBs are crucial for realising the vision of ULBs as a viable third tier of government and capitalising on the potential that cities represent for growth and development,” he said.

The ‘City Finance Rankings, 2022’ aim to evaluate, recognise and reward India’s cities (Urban Local Bodies or ULBs) on the basis of the quality of their current financial health and improvement over time in financial performance.

The rankings aim to motivate city/state officials and decision makers to implement municipal finance reforms.

The participating ULBs will be evaluated on 15 indicators across three key municipal finance assessment parameters, namely: (i) Resource mobilisation, (ii) Expenditure performance and (iii) Fiscal governance. The cities will be ranked at the national level on the basis of their scores under any one of the following four population categories: (i) Above 4 million (ii) Between 1-4 million (iii) 100K to 1 million (iv) Less than 100,000.

The top three cities in each population category will be recognised and rewarded at the national level as well as within each state/state cluster. The participating ULBs will be invited to submit the required data/documents (including audited accounts, annual budgets, and self-reported performance metrics) through the online facility created on www.cityfinance.in , the ministry said.

All 4,500+ cities / ULBs across all states/UTs would be encouraged to participate in the City Finance Rankings, 2022.

The ‘City Beauty Competition’ has been designed as a platform to evaluate, recognise and reward wards and public spaces in cities across five broad pillars ― aesthetics, accessibility, amenities, activities and ecology.

"It aims to encourage cities to conserve their rich traditional heritage, streamline their delivery mechanisms for efficient provisioning of basic infrastructure, develop community participation, imbibe the tenets of ecological conservation, and promote local economy," the secretary said.

The competition will felicitate the most beautiful wards, both at the city and state levels, while cities would be awarded for their most beautiful public places, waterfronts, green spaces, tourist and heritage spaces, and market and commercial places.