South Indian states fear that the 15th finance commission’s revenue sharing formula based on latest population figures will skew against them. Photo: ReutersNew Delhi: The controversy about the 15th finance commission’s mandate allegedly not favouring states that did well in controlling population growth is a “needless” one as the Commission’s charter has no inherent bias against states that performed well in this count, finance minister Arun Jaitley said in his blog on Tuesday. Finance commissions use appropriate criteria to assess the true needs of states. Also, if the 15th finance commission wishes to do so, it could assign appropriate weight to the progress made in population control while allocating resources, said the post. “The terms of reference of 15th finance commission rightly balance both the ‘needs’ represented by latest population and “progress towards population control” very well”, said Jaitley.

Source: Mint April 10, 2018 15:38 UTC