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extremely low level of services and, consequently, the deplorable living conditions in cities and towns. We analyze below the performance of municipalities on the basis of two supplementary criteria: (a) expenditure on salaries and wages and (b) expenditure on operations and maintenance. Note should be made of the staff-intensive activity of municipal operations. For instance, solid waste collection and management is vastly labor intensive, except in a few large cities, where mechanized collection has replaced manual lifting of garbage. Therefore, a high proportion of expenditure on salaries and wages is commonly observed among municipalities in most states. The statewide position is given in table 5.11. Expenditure on salaries and wages accounts for 54.2 percent of total municipal expenditure. In Madhya Pradesh, however, it is as high as 80.4 percent. T A B L E 5 . 1 1 Per Capita Expenditure on Salaries and Wages State
Maharashtra Himachal Pradesh Punjab Gujarat Goa Jammu and Kashmir Madhya Pradesh West Bengal Tripura Tamil Nadu Chhattisgarh Uttaranchal Kerala Rajasthan Karnataka Orissa Haryana Andhra Pradesh Uttar Pradesh Assam Manipur Jharkhand Bihar Sample states
Salaries and wages, 2001/02 (Rs)
Annual growth rate, 1997/98 to 2001/02 (%)
681.72 477.14 411.47 394.46 366.34 344.51 343.89 317.70 313.52 272.16 263.25 254.91 247.90 246.92 202.92 179.64 177.93 169.34 165.11 138.19 62.10 37.24 37.24 312.58
4.73 11.92 12.65 8.07 8.23 20.13 –0.33 12.80 7.41 5.87 — — 14.65 7.56 8.99 11.13 –0.51 12.08 8.35 5.71 7.04 — –8.85 6.70
Source: Mathur and Thakur 2004. Note: Sample states refers to those states whose data are contained in the table.
