October - December 2012 - National Institute of Rural Development

Affordability of Streetlight Services by Gram Panchayats In Karnataka ... 427Affordability of Streelight ServicesIn order to analyse the affordability ofstreetlight services in each GP, a ratio ofexpenditure (on electricity and maintenance)to the revenue (light cess) has been workedout. This ratio shows the amount spent onproviding streetlight services for every rupeeof revenue received by each GP. Higher theratio, less is the affordability of GPs to providestreetlight services. This is because GPs willhave to meet the expenditure on streetlightservices by diverting larger proportion ofuntied grants provided by the Stategovernment. Lower the ratio, greater abilityof GP to provide streetlight services with itsown revenue. This further implies lesserdependence on the untied grants providedby the State government and more spendingon priority needs of the people.A distribution of GPs by ratio ofexpenditure to the revenue is provided inTable 3. Across different GPs in the State,the expenditure for every rupee of therevenue was as low as ` 0.61 to as high as` 6,661. The average ratio of expenditure toreceipt, which was ` 103.93 in the Statevaried across the districts. There were alsovariations across the districts in thedistribution of GPs by ratio. In the case of asmany as 40 per cent of GPs in the State, theexpenditure was between ` 20-50 for everyone rupee of revenue. In the case of 22.3per cent of GPs, the expenditure was ` 10-20 for one rupee of revenue. Notably, about15 per cent of GPs spent less than ` 10 forevery one rupee of revenue that theycollected in the form of light cess. In thecase of about 23 per cent of GPs, theexpenditure was more than ` 50 for onerupee of revenue.The proportion of GPs spending lessthan ` 20 for one rupee of revenue wasrelatively higher in Bijapur, Belgaum, Bagalkot,Dakshina Kannada, Kodagu, Udupi and UttaraKannada. In some of the districts of highlydeveloped category such as Bangalore Rural,Chikmagalur and Mysore, the proportion ofGPs spending between ` 20-50 was quiteprominent. Similarly, this proportion issignificant in the districts like Chitradurga,Kolar, Raichur, Hassan, Tumkur, Mandya,Chamarajnagar from highly backward andbackward category of districts.The information, thus, shows that thereare wide variations in the affordability ofstreetlight services by Karnataka GPs. TheseTable 3 : Distribution of GPs (%) by Ratio of Expenditure on Streetlights to Total ReceiptsCategory of Ratio of expenditure to receipt Minimum Maximum AverageDistricts ratio ratio ratio< 10 10-20 20-50 50-100 >100 TotalHighly developed 16.53 24 36.71 14.76 8 1,125 0.61 2743.72 45.77Developed 24.19 29.38 32.54 9.32 4.57 1,137 0.83 2334.53 32.15Backward 6.18 17.6 48.13 18.1 9.99 1,392 1.27 1016.92 52.7Highly backward 15.97 19.87 38.7 15.34 10.11 1,434 1.11 6661.05 60.15State 15.25 22.29 39.47 14.62 8.37 5,088 0.61 6661.05 48.67Source: Data provided by the GPs.Journal of Rural Development, Vol. 31, No. 4, October - December : 2012