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44b) resource mobilisation - revenue autonomy, the local resource base etc. becomerelevant concerns here; also the issue of local capital accumulation and the flight of footloosecapital from rural to urban and semi-urban areas for more profitable investment becomesgermane to our research agenda; although the ‘local’ is not necessarily connected with the‘global’ in a direct and straightforward way, under the influence of new global forces,localities witness some visible changes. In West Bengal a major shift is under way fromthe regime of land reforms to one of land markets and contract farming. All this will havea direct bearing on resource mobilisation under PRI auspices); one may however ask whatincentives the GP will have to use its power of revenue raising when transfer from aboveis assured. But given the huge burden of debt on both the Central and State governments,it is doubtful how long the fund flow will last. According to one estimate, the debt burdenof the Cnetral government is in the order of Rs. 8000 trillion. Of the total State-level debtburden, West Bengal’s share is high – almost double the average burden. The per capitashare of the debt burden in many other States is about Rs.4000 whereas in West Bengal thecorresponding figure is roughly about Rs.9000;c) resource use – autonomy in spending decisions is the key question here. ArePRIs simply implementation agencies for development projects conceived at higher levelsand therefore remain straight-jacketed within the confines of ‘tied’ grants or do the actualprocesses of budgetary allocations leave some room for flexibility such that in somesituations enterprising PR representatives or local bureaucrats (e.g. BDOs) are able to get‘committed’ funds released for other uses, driven by locally set priorities? The LBs areoften devoid of autonomy in determining their spending priorities. The grants are generallytied (i.e., scheme-specific) and hence curb expenditure autonomy of PRIs (Jha, 2002).That is to say, the capacity of PRIs is limited in this context, as they are primarilyimplementer of government programmes and their role is largely in identifying beneficiariesfor poverty alleviation programmes. But interestingly in using schematic funds there issome leeway in somehow getting tied grants untied. 25 Therefore, some room exists forusing schematic budget in an innovative way. It is the careful analysis of such divergentbudgetary practices, over and above the study of routine allocation of funds, which willhopefully illuminate our understanding of inter-State and even inter-tier variations in fiscalperformance.Another important element is to contrast citizens’ resource mobilisation for localdevelopment projects – both formal and informal. Interviews with several experts and