An Assessment of Fiscal Decentralization under Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Local Government Act 2013: (A Case Study of Locally Elected Bodies in District Peshawar).

Abstract

The basic objective of this study is to provide a detailed analysis of the Fiscal decentralization under Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Local Government Act 2013. Local government system plays an important role in local development as well as in decision making at grass root level. Pakistan has practiced various forms of local government systems since its inception. However, such local government systems have not provided know how about political decentralization at local level in a true sense, either due to lack of interest on the part of politicians or lack of awareness on the part of public. The present study has assessed Local Government Act 2013 of KP in terms of Fiscal decentralization in District Peshawar. This research is based on the quantitative and analytical approaches. The research work is the answer to the main research question i.e. to what extent Fiscal decentralization has been practically implemented in District Peshawar? Regarding Fiscal decentralization the study argues that it has been implemented to a greater extent  (61.4%) but on the other hand a major portion of the concerned locally elected bodies (38.6%) provided that they received annual developmental funds through Provincial Finance Commission did not meet the needs of the concerned council.  The scope of the study is confined to district Peshawar. Primary data has been analyzed with the help of descriptive and inferential statistics via SPSS software. The descriptive statistics include frequencies and percentages while inferential statistics   include Chi-square test and p-value.