South India FMs' conclave: 'ToR of 15th Finance Commission against laws of land'; Tamil Nadu, Telangana skip conference

Finance ministers of just three southern states and one union territory met on Tuesday in Thiruvananthapuram, at a conference convened by Kerala, to discuss the concerns surrounding the ‘Terms of Reference (ToR)’’ of the 15th Finance Commission. The meeting, which aimed to host representatives from across southern India, failed to draw the finance ministers of Tamil Nadu and Telangana.

Representatives of Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Puducherry, along with Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan were present at the meeting.

Speaking at the event, Andhra Pradesh finance minister Y Ramakrishnudu said that without asking any state governments, the Centre arbitrarily decided the ToR which, according to him, are against the laws of the land.

“We’ve to see that more power is given to [the> states. 80 percent of development will be done by states & only 20 percent by the Centre,” Y Ramakrishnudu was quoted as saying by ANI .

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram also voiced concerns over the ToR, terming them “seriously flawed”. He said the ToR would adversely affect the better-performing states.

Expressing his disappointment to reporters on Monday, Kerala finance minister TM Thomas Isaac said the changes in the ToR of the 15th Finance Commission, that would adversely affect the southern states, must become a debate in the country.

“The objective of the conference was to highlight the issue and make it a national agenda for debate”, Isaac said. Slamming the Centre, he said the ToR was against the federal co-operative structure of the country. “We will not allow to destroy the federal co-operative structure of the nation’, he said.

Earlier, Chidambaram had said the central government has “lit a fire” and it should be doused before the southern “flames scorch the federation”. Better-governed and better-performing states have already lost crucial fractions in their shares, he had said.

The former finance and home minister had pointed out that the Finance Commission shall use population data from the 2011 Census and not the 1971 Census that was used hitherto. “Structurally, the Constitution gives more powers of taxation to the Centre and more responsibilities of expenditure to the states. Hitherto, the population data was taken from the 1971 Census. The ‘freeze’ was agreed upon to protect the states that had done well in stabilising their population,” he said.

According to The Indian Express , this isn’t the first time that states are protesting against the ToR of the Finance Commissions. Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik raised similar concerns in 2013, saying the ToR would impact as many as 11 states.

With inputs from agencies