New Delhi: Failing to institutionalise and uniformly empower State Finance Commissions (SFCs) across Indian states would leave municipal finances unstable and city planning weakened, a report by Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy released on Saturday said. The report is titled Strengthening State Finance Commissions for Empowered Local Governments. (Representative photo/ Getty image) “Despite being the most predictable source of funding for India’s cities and towns, SFCs remain neglected and unevenly empowered across states,” the report, titled Strengthening State Finance Commissions for Empowered Local Governments, said. The report highlighted that SFC grants are nearly four times higher than Union Finance Commission (UFC) grants to urban local bodies, and that cities, in the absence of strong own-source revenues, are largely dependent on them. It said that own-source revenues typically covered only 60–70% of recurrent expenditure, leaving capital investment and some operational spending reliant on intergovernmental transfers. “Since scheme-based funding from state and central governments is often sector-linked and time-bound, SFC devolution remained the only flexible and predictable funding stream available to many municipalities,” the report added. …