Amid hue and cry for increasing allocation to Gujarat from the Central taxes, the Fourteenth Finance Commission which is given the mandate of allocating share out of Central taxes for the States under the Constitution is visiting Gujarat on Monday and Tuesday.
The Commission, which was set up by the Government of India early in 2013, is expected to submit its report by October 2014. The Commission will recommend share of States in the Central taxes from April 2015 to March 31, 2020.
The Thirteenth Finance Commission had given Gujarat a share of 3.04 per cent out of the sharable kitty of taxes of the Central Government. Terming the share much lower than expected, the State Government is going to submit an effective memorandum backed up by presentation to the Commission to plead for higher allocation to the State.
The members of the Commission will visit some of the projects of Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation such as BRTS and Riverfront in the forenoon on Monday. In the afternoon, the Commission will hold consultation with representatives of local Bodies, Chamber of Commerce and Political Parties in three separate meetings.
On Tuesday, the Commission will have discussions with the State Government in a meeting to be chaired by Chief Minister Narendra Modi at Mahatma Mandir. later on, the Commission will be divided into two groups. One group will visit the State load Despatch Centre of GUVNl at Vadodara and would also visit ITI and Kaushlya Vardhan Kendra. The second group will visit the Water Pumping Station of SSNNl at Dhanki, District Surendranagar to understand the magnitude of efforts made by Gujarat for meeting with water scarcity problem in Saurashtra and Kutch.
The Chairman of the Commission is YV Reddy, who was the Governor of Reserve Bank of India for five years till 2008. The other members of the Commission are Prof Abhijit Sen, Member of Planning Commission and a Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Dr Sudipto Mundle, former chairman of National Statistical Commission, Dr M GovindRao, Former Director of National Institute of Public Finance and Policy and Sushma Nath, Retired Secretary Government of India. The Member-Secretary of the Commission is AN Jha, an IAS Officer in the rank of Additional Secretary to Government of India.