The Chairman and Members of the 15th Finance Commission presented a copy of its report for the period 2021-22 to 2025-26 to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Commission had submitted its report to President Ram Nath Kovind on November 4.
Chairman N.K. Singh along with Members of the Commission, Ajay Narayan Jha, Anoop Singh, Ashok Lahiri and Ramesh Chand along with Secretary to the Commission Arvind Mehta were present at the presentation.
The Commission will present its Report to the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday.
The report will be placed on the table of the Parliament along with ‘Explanatory Memorandum’ by way of ATR as prescribed under the Constitution.
Last year, the Commission had submitted its report consisting of recommendations for 2020-21 fiscal, which was accepted by the Union government and tabled in Parliament on January 30 this year.
As per the terms of reference (ToR), the Commission was mandated to give its recommendations for the five-year period by October 30.
It was asked to give its recommendations on many unique and wide-ranging issues. Apart from the vertical and horizontal tax devolution, local government grants, disaster management grants, the Commission was also asked to examine and recommend performance incentives for states in many areas like power sector, adoption of DBT, solid waste management etc.
The panel was also asked to examine whether a separate mechanism for funding of defence and internal security ought to be set up and, if so, how such a mechanism could be operationalised.
The Commission has sought to address all its ToRs in the latest report, organised in four volumes.
Volume I and II, as in the past, contain the main report and the accompanying annexes. Volume III is devoted to the Union government and examines key departments in greater depth, with the medium-term challenges and the road map ahead. Volume IV is entirely devoted to the states.
The Commission analysed the finances of each state in great depth and came up with state-specific considerations to address the key challenges that individual states faced.
The report entitled ‘Finance Commission in Covid Times’ uses scales on its cover to indicate the balance between the states and the Union.
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