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States demands amendments to 15th Finance Commission, meets Prez Kovind

New Delhi: Finance minister of six states including Delhi and Pondicherry on Thursday meet President Ramnath Kovind and submitted a memorandum demanding 13 amendments to the Terms of Reference of the 15th Finance Commission.


The memorandum submitted by Finance Ministers of Kerala, Delhi, West Bengal, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh and Puducherry stated: “The terms of reference violate the federal principle as enshrined in the Constitution, erode the autonomy of all States and bring significant financial hardship to all States.”

One of the major amendments demanded by the ministers is the use of 1971 population date instead of 2011 population data used by the Finance Commission for the devolution of funds which was used by all the previous Finance Commissions.

T.M. Thomas Isaac, Manish Sisodia, Amit Mitra, Manpreet Singh Badal, Yanamala Ramakrishnudu and V. Narayanswamy demanded that they have been arguing that it is for the popularly elected governments to decide what is ‘populist’ and what isn’t.

Other amendments included the deletion of the reference to Direct Benefit Transfers (DBT). The 15th Finance Commission has said that the States will be assessed on progress made by them in promoting DBT.

 

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