Fiscal Health of Maharashtra:A Stock Taking Exercise

This paper provides a brief overview of the economic environment in Maharashtra including the socio-economic development of the state as a backdrop. Within this context, we assess and analyse the fiscal situation in Maharashtra. We, examine both, the relative performance vis-a-vis other major states of the Indian union and its temporal performance over a ten-year period. The power sector has been illustratively discussed as a bottleneck to growth of Maharashtra's economy, and hence adding to the fiscal woes of the state. The Cotton Monopoly Scheme and Sugar co-operatives have been discussed in this context. For the reform package to be comprehensive we would like to see policy measures being initiated at different levels:policies at the level of the state, which are financial and administrative in the main; policies that the central government must pursue in its dealing with the states and the third type of policy measures that are overarching in the sense that they concern the governments at all levels and deal with issues of capacity building and governance.