Leading economists of Karnataka on Monday raised concerns over large infrastructure gaps and widening democratic deficit during a meeting with members and senior officials of the 15th Finance Commission.In the area of democratic decentralisation in which Karnataka is a pioneer, various recent studies and trends related to the third tier of the government were discussed with the commission headed by its Chairman N K Singh.With regards to urban local bodies, attention was drawn towards increasing fiscal needs due to rapid urbanisation. Karnataka has a total of 280 urban local bodies of which 115 are town municipal councils, 92 are town panchayats, 58 are city municipal councils, 11 are municipal corporations and 4 notified area councils.The Commission said that there have been no releases of performance grants to urban local bodies in 2017-18 and 2018-19. Revenue from advertisement tax for urban local bodies was estimated to be Rs 200 crore in 2018-19. However, the Goods and Services ...
