Panchayats and towns: what your local governments got and spent

How local government works, and how these figures are checked

Panchayats in villages

Part IX of the Constitution provides for panchayats at three levels: the village (Gram Panchayat), the block (Panchayat Samiti or Block Panchayat) and the district (Zilla Panchayat or Zilla Parishad). A State with a population of 20 lakh or less need not have the block level (Article 243B). Part IX does not apply in Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland (Article 243M).

Municipal bodies in towns and cities

Part IXA provides for a Nagar Panchayat where an area is changing from rural to urban, a Municipal Council for a smaller urban area and a Municipal Corporation for a larger one (Article 243Q). Their members are elected from wards (Article 243R).

Where their money comes from

• Grants recommended by the Finance Commission, paid through the States (the Centre tab).
• Money from the State, as its State Finance Commission recommends (Articles 243I and 243Y).
• Their own revenue: property tax, fees, rents and charges.
• Money for particular schemes from the Union and State governments.

Where the figures on this page come from

Panchayats: eGramSwaraj, the accounting system of the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, where each panchayat books its receipts and payments. Towns: cityfinance.in, where the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs publishes each municipal body's annual accounts and says whether they were audited. Both are read again every week. The Centre tab is from the report of the 16th Finance Commission.

How they are checked

• A State's panchayat figures add up its districts. Where eGramSwaraj's own State total does not match its district rows, the page says so in a warning with links to both tables.
• A district figure over Rs 1,000 crore that is more than 50 times the middle figure of the State's other districts, and of the same district in other years, is left out as a likely entry error and listed with the portal's own number.
• A town's figures are shown only for the years its published accounts cover.

What is not published

Spending ward by ward is not published nationally; each town's number of wards is. Each panchayat's own accounts and the works it paid for are on eGramSwaraj after typing the code shown on its screen; the Your Panchayat's Works tab links to them, and drafts an RTI application to ask the panchayat directly.

Source: Constitution of India, Parts IX and IXA, eGramSwaraj, Ministry of Panchayati Raj, cityfinance.in, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.