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Om Prakash Mathur
Operations and maintenance of services such as water supply and sewerage systems, management of solid waste, street lights, and roads are key functions of municipalities. The level of expenditure on operations and maintenance is an important indicator of the quality of services (table 5.13). On average, operations and maintenance expenditure accounts for 39.93 percent of total municipal expenditure. Several states, however, spend substantially higher amounts than the average per capita—Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Punjab among them. The other end, where municipal spending on operations and maintenance is low, both per capita and as a percentage of total expenditure, is represented by Assam, Chhattisgarh, Manipur, Rajasthan, Tripura, Uttaranchal, and West T A B L E 5 . 1 3 Operations and Maintenance Expenditure
State
Andhra Pradesh Assam Bihar Chhattisgarh Goa Gujarat Haryana Himachal Pradesh Jammu and Kashmir Jharkhand Karnataka Kerala Madhya Pradesh Maharashtra Manipur Orissa Punjab Rajasthan Tamil Nadu Tripura Uttaranchal Uttar Pradesh West Bengal Sample states
Expenditure, 2001/02 (Rs million)
Percentage of total expenditure
Average annual growth rate, 1997/98 to 2001/02 (%)
Per capita expenditure, 2001/02 (Rs)
62.169 1.797 4.316 4.405 0.866 67.180 4.504 2.821 1.199 1.494 37.693 13.026 13.070 171.298 0.102 9.178 48.239 17.336 54.258 0.096 2.957 26.638 33.210 57.785
65.87 33.98 57.29 30.00 39.37 43.39 30.29 50.06 12.27 45.19 51.49 43.70 19.59 34.76 23.36 49.41 59.18 34.66 43.51 7.26 36.24 29.00 34.83 39.93
16.54 6.82 20.91 8.68a 25.02 8.56 11.14 16.78 21.47 –5.60a 16.49 5.43 –10.83 10.19 0.38 19.76 25.00 8.79 0.24 –5.58 9.99 16.75 7.80 10.59
335.20 71.96 49.96 112.82 237.84 375.42 77.31 478.31 48.18 39.41 215.37 215.49 83.77 435.74 18.93 175.42 596.65 135.28 209.63 25.90 144.86 79.80 169.79 230.31
Source: Mathur and Thakur 2004. a. Annual change for one year.
