.svg){kind=icon}
.svg){kind=icon}
%201.svg){kind=icon}
%201.svg){kind=icon}
.svg){kind=icon}
.svg)
.svg)
Satadru Sikdar
Satadru Sikdar is with National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP), New Delhi, since 2006. Prior to this, he was associated with Centre for budget and Governance Accountability, New Delhi. His major area of research is public policies and provisioning for social services, and public finance management at different levels of government. He has been associated with several research studies in NIPFP, including preparation of Medium-Term Fiscal Policy for different states; effectiveness and utilisation of funds for selected schemes, property taxation and urban poverty alleviation among others.
.svg)
Subsidies, merit goods, and fiscal space - II
In Part I of this two-part series, the authors presented their estimates of total budget subsidies, and their merit and non-merit components. In this part, they discuss the relationship between subsidies and the delivery of specific public services, the comparative efficiency of subsidy use by different states, and the scope for rationalisation of subsidies as a part of deep fiscal reforms, in order to create fiscal space for reviving inclusive growth following the Covid-19 lockdown shock.
Budget subsidies of the central government and 14 major Indian states: 1987-88 and 2011-12
In this article, Mundle and Sikdar of NIPFP, present their estimates of the flow of subsidies through the budgets of the central government and 14 major Indian states in 1987-88 and 2011-12. The estimates show that the overall level of subsidies rela-tive to GDP has declined, as has the share of non-merit subsidies. This suggests some improvement in efficiency in this aspect of public expenditure.
Governance performance of Indian states: 2001-02 and 2011-12
Defining governance as service delivery, this column develops a measure of the quality of governance – also adjusting for the impact of the level of development - and provides a ranking of major Indian states. The analysis suggests that there are two distinct paths of development in the less- and more-developed states.