The study examined the fiscal decentralisation process through a gender lens in selected five countries; viz., Mexico, Morocco, Philippines, South Africa, and India. The study noted that if the budgetary process is to yield significant benefits for women, gender budgeting in the rrow sense of earmarking a minimum fraction of expenditure of every government department might not be very helpful. Given that most of the public services that concern women or address their needs are by and large delivered at the local level, the first requirement for gender orientation of a government budget is to empower local governments adequately to take care of these concerns, that in turn implies decentralisation in the true sense and not just as a matter of form. While all the countries surveyed have attempted to move in the direction of gender budgeting, progress in the matter of fiscal decentralisation and women’s empowerment has been uneven across countries. The message reflected through these studies is that if gender concerns are to be effectively attended through the budget process, decentralisation in the true form must be followed i.e., without any problems of unfunded mandates and with adequate feminisation of local governce and effective voice in public expenditure decisions.

The work involved assessing progress of the state government in achieving the targets under the FRBM Act in the state of Harya.

The specific objectives of the project are the following six (i) to identify the access and utilisation patterns of microfince programmes across gender; (ii) to alyse the structure of interest rates, loan portfolio, pattern of collateral (if any), frequency of repayment terms, any evidence of Ponzi fince across gender; (iii) to alyse whether ‘peer monitoring’ instead of tangible asset-based collateral ensure better welfare of women borrowers; (iv) to alyse the determints of the Self Help Group formation process and their participatory magement in microfince programme in reducing the transaction costs of both banks and borrowers; (v) to alyse the feedback mechanism of microfince and economic activity, whether microfince is a strategic tool for income generating activities and poverty alleviation; (vi) to alyse whether access to microfince leads to economic empowerment of women through improving the bargaining power of poor women in intrahousehold and societal decision making processes; and (vii) to alyse that the fincial implications of microfince on bank branch business as attaining fincial viability and sustaibility are the two institutiol challenges of microfince programmes.

The methodology adopted is Control Group Methodology through longitudil surveys across six banking zones of India in 12 blocks (out of which 6 are control blocks) to alyse the SGSY, the largest poverty linked microfince programme.

The overall conclusion of the study is that any kind of subsidy targeted at the individual level must be stopped; instead the entire amount of central and state grant must be utilised for the development of human capital, viz., formation of SHG, training. This is based on the empirical evidence that subsidy seemed to be the major motivation factor for SHGs functioning under SGSY; therefore majority of SHGs have not generated economic surplus from their credit led assets. The recovery rate is barely 42 percent. The study emphasised that government machinery must take only a development role and leave credit decisions to banks. The gender lens applied to the study revealed that micro credit is not a pacea for economic underdevelopment; and it has not led to the economic and social empowerment of women in totality.

This paper is an attempt to set up a 3-equation structural model for the Indian economy 1987-88 to 2002-03 linking three endogenous variables GDP per capita; life expectancy at birth (LE); and CO2 (Carbon dioxide emissions) with 28 predetermined variables. To overcome the problem of degrees of freedom (undersized samples), the predetermined variables by their principal components are replaced.

This paper provided revised forecasts on CT and IT for FY 2007-08. The revised forecasts are based on actual tax collection upto the end of the third quarter (i.e., upto Dec. 31, 2006) and projection for the fourth quarter.

As part of the annual exercise of forecasting direct tax receipts, this paper provided tax projections for CT and IT for FY 2006-07. The forecasts are based on actual tax collection upto the end of second quarter (i.e., upto September 30, 2006) and projections for the third and fourth quarters.

This programme was designed to eble the GoMP to strengthen performance magement in a sustaible manner for effective poverty reduction and human development. The objective of the programme design was to develop a comprehensive framework for Public Expenditure Magement by devising a Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and link it to annual budgets.

The objective was to examine the extent of fiscal space required to carry out a pay revision. Based on plausible assumption of salary hike across scales and group of employees, and future revenues and expenditures, the study examined the fiscal implications of salary hike. The study had also examined the impact of salary hike within MTFP framework of Kartaka Government and the question of fiscal sustaibility thereon.

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Fourteen years after the mandating of a third tier of government at local level by a constitutiol amendment in 1993, this study reports on how decentralised government is functioning in the rural areas of four states (pre-selected by the terms of the UNDP mandate) Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, and Rajasthan. The report quantifies the present state of functiol devolution from figures of expenditure assignment using Budget Estimates of the four states for the fiscal year 2006-07; fund flows from the centre based on the central budget for fiscal year 2006-07; and the utilisation of these receipts by PRIs, along with own revenues collected and the state of fiscal monitoring, based on a field survey of 780 sample gram panchayats, 78 janpad panchayats, and 17 zilla panchayats. The seventeen districts covered comprise the initial set of nine backward districts pre-selected by UNDP and an additiol eight districts with lower deprivation characteristics.

The project aimed to develop a medium-term fiscal policy plan for the period from 2006-07 to 2008-09 with rolling targets for various deficits and stock of state debt. Having alysed the recent trend in Goa State Finces and after examining in detail the FRBM Act of Goa, fiscal restructuring paths with detailed prescriptive targets of revenues and expenditures to adhere to the FRBM targets had been suggested.

The report seeks to assess the problems and identify potential directions for development of the state. It identifies jhum based cultivation as one of the important economic and cultural parameters of the state, and seeks to incorporate implications of the same for developing a strategy. The proposed strategy involves two-pronged approach  i.e. through primary and tertiary sectors. For the primary sector, the suggested approach deals both with organisatiol issues and consolidation of a diverse portfolio of activities. In the tertiary sector, the strength of the state is located in the relatively higher levels of education in the state. The strategy therefore is to encourage development of a health hub in the state, with a vision to cater to the needs of all states in the north east, since these services are rather limited to this region, and Mizoram has the requisite climate and the political atmosphere for such an activity. This would require not just investment in physical infrastructure, but also gradual evolution in markets, especially labour market, for the transition to become effective.

This project has developed indicators of good governce for the electricity sector that span legislative, executive, and regulatory processes. The indicators have been tested in four Asian countries India, Indonesia, Philippines, and Thailand. The results are being dissemited to intertiol agencies, governments, regulators and civil society. The project is in collaboration with the World Resources Institute (USA), and Prayas-Pune.

The objectives of the study were to develop norms and standards for core civic services comprising safe drinking water, sanitation, including sewerage, road maintence and street lights for urban areas; work out fincial implications of these norms; and study the existing octroi system in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and filly recommend specific actions for restructuring the invoice-based octroi. The average consumption of water at the time of the survey was 90 litre per capita daily (LPCD). The results of the household survey (desired 130 LPCD) broadly concur with the ideal supply standard (of 135 LPCD) proposed by the tiol Commission on Urbanisation for urban areas. Two scerios for norms regarding PBMC's water supply increase water supply by 50 LPCD; increase water supply by 100 LPCD are considered. If increases in Operations and Maintence and establishment expenditure alone were to be finced by user charges, then the increase required in the user charge is an average increase of Rs.73 per month per household (for an extra 50 LPCD) or an increase of Rs.146 per month per household (for an extra 100 LPCD). The recommendations list five proposals for restructuring octroi. The study team found that all proposals for octroi restructuring yield greater net revenue to the PBMC than its net current revenue (for 2004-05) which was Rs.223 million.

Estimation of demand of petroleum products for the period upto 2025. The demand estimates have taken into consideration the substitution of liquid petroleum products by tural gas, CNG, etc. The demand projections reflect a change in the structure of product mix. Demand for high speed diesel and superior kerosene oil is likely to decrease due to high rate of substitution, while demand for aviation turbine fuel is likely to grow at a higher rate. Demand for phtha, liquified petroleum gas, motor spirit and furce oil is likely to follow the trend rate. The study uses multiple correlation forecasting and vector autoregression (VAR) methods for estimating the demand.

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