It is projected that by 2050, India will have an additional 416 million urban inhabitants [1]. In this regard policies have to be designed to ensure that benefits of urbanisation i.e., infrastructure and services are available for everyone. This will necessitate additional resources and funds at the disposal of local government. However, the municipal revenues remain stagnant due to low revenue base. The flagship missions started by the government to augment the financial health of cities resulting in access to capital markets. The urban local bodies need to have strong financials where they are capable of generating revenue from varied sources and servicing debt at the same time. Thus, there is a strong need felt by local bodies to boost self-generated revenue. The role of technology is pivotal in increasing operational efficiency and thus contribute towards augmenting revenue. This will particularly become more relevant with the growing urbanisation in India. Government policies emphasize the use of digital innovation to enhance municipal financial health to address the same. Technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), geo-tagging, point-of-sale (PoS) machines, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), the Internet of Things (IoT), and data cross-mapping help cities to identify efficiently the 3Us namely the unassessed, under-assessed, and unpaid properties efficiently. Cities can unlock untapped revenue potential by integrating municipal revenue records with utility service databases while simultaneously encouraging digital payments, promoting transparency, and fostering voluntary citizen compliance. These technologies help create a financial system that uses data responsibly and includes everyone. This is important for cities to manage their own money and support the national goal of a developed India by 2047.

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Harnessing Technology for Revenue Augmentation: Towards Sustainable Finance in Indian Cities

  • CA Pankaj Goel,
  • Shalu Mahajan

摘要

It is projected that by 2050, India will have an additional 416 million urban inhabitants [1]. In this regard policies have to be designed to ensure that benefits of urbanisation i.e., infrastructure and services are available for everyone. This will necessitate additional resources and funds at the disposal of local government. However, the municipal revenues remain stagnant due to low revenue base. The flagship missions started by the government to augment the financial health of cities resulting in access to capital markets. The urban local bodies need to have strong financials where they are capable of generating revenue from varied sources and servicing debt at the same time. Thus, there is a strong need felt by local bodies to boost self-generated revenue. The role of technology is pivotal in increasing operational efficiency and thus contribute towards augmenting revenue. This will particularly become more relevant with the growing urbanisation in India. Government policies emphasize the use of digital innovation to enhance municipal financial health to address the same. Technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), geo-tagging, point-of-sale (PoS) machines, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), the Internet of Things (IoT), and data cross-mapping help cities to identify efficiently the 3Us namely the unassessed, under-assessed, and unpaid properties efficiently. Cities can unlock untapped revenue potential by integrating municipal revenue records with utility service databases while simultaneously encouraging digital payments, promoting transparency, and fostering voluntary citizen compliance. These technologies help create a financial system that uses data responsibly and includes everyone. This is important for cities to manage their own money and support the national goal of a developed India by 2047.