A Workshop on State and Municipal budget analysis

Where does our money go?

• A Workshop on State and Municipal budget analysis

 

Background:

The allocation of the budget is a key instrument for governments to promote economic development in people friendly ways. The budget allocation process is a political issue, and understanding the institutional and political context in which budget decisions are made and implemented is seen as critical for achieving better outcomes. Allocating the budget is perhaps the central arena for operationalising pro-poor growth. Yet it has been proved one of the most elusive challenges. This is because there is hardly any people’s involvement in the whole process – people who are the ultimate beneficiaries of budgetary outcomes. 

In a democracy as big as ours, it is important to explore how the composition of public spending and the manner in which public resources are spent may have affected the ability of poor people to connect to growth. The extent to which social sector expenditures were captured by the poor, and factors that were likely to affect the efficiency and effectiveness of expenditures in achieving improved sector outcomes, can be best understood by the extent of participation of poor households in growth. In other words it is based on the need to address distribution and reduce poverty through public interventions. Much of the distribution happens through state, district and sub-district budgets that directly affect people and most of the money for public spending is raised through direct and indirect taxes. This makes the Government accountable to all public spending. 

Therefore, whether we belong to development organisations or academic institutions, whether working directly on budgets or on social issues it is important for all of us to understand the allocation procedure and how far it is pro-society. Only then can we advocate/ demand for our benefits. This is the practice of ‘democracy’ in its true sense. Based on the theme ‘deepening democracy’ and recognising the need to practise it YUVA Centre is organising its second round of training of analysing budgets from a social perspective.  

Experts in their field of state and Municipal budgeting would be part of this four day workshop. [Please refer to the enclosed profile of each of them].  

YUVA Centre at Kharghar was initiated in August 2001 as the training and development wing of YUVA. The objective was to create space for collective learning for people/groups working towards the common cause of human and institutional development. To this effect YUVA Centre has, in the past 5 years attempted to enable this democratisation of society through learning and training processes that go beyond mere transfer of knowledge and skills, to engaging with the transformation processes in civil society.  

The core objective of the proposed workshop would be to understand and analyse the intricacies and politics of social budgets at the state and municipal levels through lectures and group work. 

It would be an opportunity to analyse budgets of states/areas to which we belong through group work processes, under the guidance of these experts. 
 

Invitation:

We are happy to announce our second round of training on Budget analysis from 24^th to 27^th July 2007. The topic to be covered is State and Municipal budget analysis.

This is in response to the huge response we had received for our previous programme on Union budget analysis during April 2007. Development workers, researchers, academicians and people from movements and campaigns were part of the said programme. All of them expressed their interest in understanding the state and municipal budgets and the process of analyzing them. Recognising their interest and the importance of understanding our budgets to be a part of the whole process of democracy YUVA Centre has now taken up this responsibility.

Resource persons:

Mahesh Kamble

Mr. Mahesh Kamble has done his Masters in Social Work from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in the year 1994. Thereafter, he has been involved in working with the development sector for the last 13 years in different capacities. He has also worked as the Director of Samarthan, an advocacy organization. He has had rich exposure in State budgeting process. He is also involved in macro analysis of food related schemes in Maharashtra. Presently he is working as assistant professor at TISS. 

Dr. Ravikant Joshi

Dr. Ravikant Joshi is a specialist in Urban Finance with over 18 years of experience in micro level urban management. He has contributed to municipal financial managemtent, budgeting and accounting system reforms, which he has designed and successfully implemented at the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) and other municipalities in India. 

Mr. Vivek Pandit

Mr. Vivek Pandit is the founder of Shramjeevi Sanghatana, a trade union of tribal labourers; Samarthan, a policy advocacy organisation along with many other organisations. He has made extraordinary contribution in the fields of release and rehabilitation of bonded labourers and universalization of elementary education. He has been awarded with the 'Anti Slavery Award' by Anti Slavery International and the 'Excellence in Social Service Award' by Rotary Club of Bombay.

He has done pioneering work in the field of state budget analysis and has effectively used the analysis for advocating the issues of tribals, dalits and other marginalised, with the policy makers. 

Priya Khan

Priya Khan is the Co-Director of Samarthan, a policy advocacy organisation that analyses the state budget of Maharashtra through its Center for Budget Analysis. Center for Budget Analysis was invited by the Estimate Committee of Maharashtra State Legislature to present its views on 'Making Budget Transparent'. Samarthan is considered as reliable and authentic source of information by the Legislators, media and party offices for budgetary as well as other statistical and issue based information. Priya has expertise in analysing the budget for social sectors as well as working with the Legislators, briefing them and ensuring effective use of the analysis.  

Registration:

You are requested to pay a registration fee of Rs.8,000 that covers your training materials kit, stationery, lodging, boarding and service tax for four full days have been arranged at our training centre with facilities of international standards, at Kharghar. Concessions would be provided to small NGOs or movement based organizations and students, on case to case basis.