The book examines Kerala's experience of fiscal decentralization, finances and decentralized planning of rural and urban local governments, and draws lessons for achieving sound fiscal decentralization. It presents the 5th State Finance Commission's approach and methodology on the devolution of the State taxes to local governments.

This book presents a number of lessons on the transfer of financial powers, mobilization of own sources of revenue and inter-governmental transfer of funds, and argues that the outcome of fiscal decentralization in Kerala is poor or unsatisfactory due to partial and distorted implementation. It shows that transferring a large number of expenditure functions at an early stage of fiscal decentralization without the assignment of adequate administrative and financial powers has resulted in poor execution of all the functions. The study points out the need to move from partial to full fiscal decentralization.