Financial strengthening of union parishad for good governance

Abstract

Existing standing of local government structure follows the recommendation of the Local Government Commission of 1996, which consists of a four-tier system but, before the commencement of the commission report, local government has gone through a process of chronological change. Among the tiers, the Union Parishad is still a permanent catalyst of the local government. A unit of local government must possess substantive autonomy particularly as reflected in the right to prepare a budget and raise the revenue necessary to meet it. But, the Union Parishad has been facing enormous problem regarding its fund. Day by day, UP is lessening its power to collect tax from its internal resources that makes weak governing system. This research focuses on Union Parishad: how it works, its sources of funding and expenditures, exploring possible new sources of funding and how it can be used for strengthening UP as a means of good governance. In the research, it have been tried to search the reasons for deficit of fund, problem of fund collection, discrepancy between income and expenditure, priority program needed in the area and finally some recommendations have been provided considering social, political and economic point of view.