Janaagraha - Associate Manager - Municipal Finance

Since inception, municipal finance reforms have been a core focus area for Janaagraha and over the years, we have worked with and supported government stakeholders at both central and state level in the areas of property tax, urban infrastructure financing, municipal accounting, among various others. Janaagraha's current/recent past engagements include:

- MoUs with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) and 15th Finance Commission

- MoU with the Government of Odisha on a wide range of reforms - from accounting and audit to budget and treasury management and urban infrastructure financing.

- Also, Janaagraha has recently worked with MoHUA to build and launch a dedicated portal - www.cityfinance.in - which serves as a national framework of standardized, timely and credible financial information on cities (ULBs), in addition to facilitating benchmarking, comparison and peer learning between cities (ULBs) on a range of financial and operating indicators.

- MoU with Greater Vishakhapatnam Municipal Corporation on reforms pertaining to own revenue enhancement and infrastructure financing

- MoU with various knowledge partners on creating thought-leadership around municipal finance subjects like tax dispute resolution and building a digital ecosystem for tax collections and treasury management

We are looking for highly passionate and competent individuals to be based out of Delhi to work in Janaagraha's Municipal Finance program.

What would Associate Manager, Municipal Finance do?

We are working towards solving one the most important problems being faced by Indian Cities: making them financially sustainable and accountable. We are working with States and cities directly for engendering on-ground change and further working towards translating these on-ground reform successes into usable - products on Cityfinance that can bring about change-at-scale. Cityfinance portal is envisioned to work as a tech tool to drive data driven governance on financial management of cities and reduce the information asymmetry on performance of cities amongst stakeholders like city governments, state governments, investors, CSOs, academicians, journalists etc.

- This role would entail the dual responsibility of working directly with States/cities and channelling the engagements into - lighthouses or copy-paste solutions for other States by building the largest database on cities and tools for improving financial resources & management in ULBs on Cityfinance.

As an Associate Manager-Municipal Finance, your role would comprise of the following:

Managing State/City Engagements : 

- Actively work with the larger Municipal Finance team with an objective of achieving large-scale reforms in strengthening revenues of local governments, specifically on strengthening the property tax policies, laws and operations

- Engagement with and persuasion of government functionaries to administer robust reforms in revenue mobilization

- Manage Government stakeholders and liaison with other teams for ensuring timely delivery on commitments and client satisfaction

Building Cityfinance for augmenting Municipal Revenues at scale

- Create blueprints of the revenue reforms implemented at the State/city level and build templates for national advocacy engagement

- Actively work with the Cityfinance Product Management team for translating the said blueprints into products/modules on Cityfinance

- Create a framework for the communication of revenue data of local governments to government functionaries and citizens to boost data-based governance, build awareness and compliance

- Conceptualise and oversee the designing, creation and dissemination of e-learning modules for capacity building and upskilling of officials ranging from revenue officers to commissioners and secretaries in the revenue optimization space

- Collaborate with and assist internal teams in running IEC campaigns for Cityfinance, reform agendas

Advocating for Municipal Revenue enhancement at national level

- Assist the Municipal Finance team to deliver on own-revenue enhancement commitments made as part of the MoU with Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs

- Manage relationships and maintain constant communication with the central government functionaries to advocate for reforms in revenue mobilization

- Deepen knowledge and analytical firepower on Municipal Revenues and identify contemporary trends and advocacy agendas

- Identify and work with small cohorts of knowledge partners/consultants on joint advocacy agendas

Qualifications and Experience : 

- A Chartered Accountant or a Post Graduate in Business Management or Post Graduate in Finance or Economics;

- At least 3 years of professional work experience in Government Advisory, Public Finance or Business/Management Consulting

- Candidates from alternative academic backgrounds with outstanding academic and career accomplishments and relevant work experience would also be considered

- Preferred : Should have worked on projects with governments on urban infra financing, municipal revenue optimization/augmentation, transaction advisory, ecosystem engagement, network building etc.