Lucknow: The Urban local bodies (ULBs) in Uttar Pradesh have steadily improved their financial health over the past four years and are on track to post another 37% growth in the current fiscal. With annual revenue collections nearing Rs 10,000 crore, the urban development department is set to record its highest year-on-year (YoY) revenue growth by March 31, 2027, marking the end of the 2026-27 financial year.Having already collected nearly Rs 2,500 crore in revenue between April 1 and July 31, the state’s 762 ULBs are projected to end the fiscal with revenue collections 37% higher than in the previous financial year. The revenue collection has been consistently rising in 17 municipal corporations and also across 200 nagar palikas (municipal councils) and 545 nagar panchayats (town councils).“The ULBs have been able to achieve higher growth by improving overall efficiency. Improved systems and processes have been put in place to ensure an increased number of households get covered. We are continuously strengthening new revenue streams, an area which remained unexplored and untapped in the past,” said ULBs director and secretary, urban development, Anuj Jha. He added, “More money with ULBs would result in improved ease of living for urban residents as the money would be utilised to strengthen the civic services.”Traditionally, ULBs focused on generating increased income through property tax. With the help of technology, an extensive Geographical Information System (GIS) survey was conducted to map all properties and their actual footprint across the 17 municipal corporations — Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi, Prayagraj, Ghaziabad, Agra, Meerut, Jhansi, Gorakhpur, Bareilly, Moradabad, Mathura, Firozabad, Ayodhya, Aligarh, Saharanpur and Shahjahanpur.Citing the examples of Kanpur and Ghaziabad, officials said that until 2023-24, the two cities did not generate any revenue from door-to-door waste collection. However, in 2024-25, they collected Rs 13 crore and Rs 5 crore, respectively, as user charges. In 2025-26, their collections increased further to Rs 18.5 crore and Rs 12.5 crore, respectively.Similarly, Agra, Ayodhya, Firozabad, Meerut, Moradabad, Saharanpur and Shahjahanpur — seven cities that were not collecting user charges for garbage collection until about 2.5 years ago — together generated Rs 9 crore in the last financial year. Pet licence fees and fines on single-use plastic are two other revenue streams that have been strengthened in recent years.Principal secretary, urban development, P Guruprasad, said, “UP govt has been proactively organising training programmes for staff deployed in civic bodies. New positions have also been created to strengthen manpower, particularly in accounting and financial services.”Lucknow nets higher revenue, but lags behind bigger citiesWhile Lucknow Municipal Corporation is far behind metropolitan cities such as Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Pune, Ahmedabad, as well as Surat and Indore, its annual revenue has been on the higher side compared with its counterparts such as Bhopal, Jaipur, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram.As per City Finance portal, a dashboard set up by Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs to review the performance of civic bodies in the country, Lucknow raked in Rs 1,932 crore revenue in 2023-24 FY. In comparison, the municipality governing Indore, Bhopal, Jaipur (urban area administered by two civic bodies), Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi in the same period stood at around Rs 1,928 crore, Rs 1,235 crore, Rs 1,065 crore, Rs 715 crore and Rs 435 crore, respectively.It though needs to be pointed out that earlier Indore was ahead of Lucknow, with the two cities raking in Rs 1,807 crore and Rs 1,330 crore during 2021-22 and Rs 1,892 crore and Rs 1,505 crore in 2022-23, respectively. Surat and Pune, the two non-capital cities, had a kitty of Rs 4,407 crore and Rs 11,207 crore in 2023-24.
