The Andhra Pradesh Panchayat Raj Act, 1994 has made a provision for constituting a Gram Sabha (GS) for every village. This forum enables the people to participate in all aspects of village development. A recent study of the working of GSs in AP state reveals that the GS has become defunct and...

For panchayats to be called self-governing institutions, some degree of fiscal autonomy is needed, among other factors. The analysis of this aspect in the context of Karnataka State, however, reveals certain disturbing trends. Overall, the panchayats in the State have very little fiscal...

The focus of this paper is to review the financial position of panchayats in India. The analysis is based on the secondary sources of information. It reveals that the panchayats have very little fiscal autonomy. The locally raised revenues are very negligible. The funds flow from higher level...