Arvind Panagariya to head finance panel

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 31

The government has constituted the 16th Finance Commission with former NITI Aayog vice-chairman Arvind Panagariya as its chairman. Ritvik Ranjanam Pandey, a 1998-batch IAS officer from the Karnataka cadre, has been appointed as the secretary. Other members of the commission would be notified separately, said an official news release.

First vice-chairman of NITI Aayog

Arvind Panagariya was the first vice-chairman of NITI Aayog after PM Modi came to power in 2014. Mentored by free-market votary Jagdish Bhagwati, Panagariya has done stints at the World Bank and allied institutions

Panagariya was the first vice-chairman of NITI Aayog after PM Narendra Modi came to power in 2014. Mentored by free-market votary Jagdish Bhagwati, Panagariya has done stints at the World Bank and its allied institutions. He currently teaches at Columbia University whose economics teaching faculty once had Milton Friedman, Joseph Stiglitz and Bhagwati. The commission is expected to make its report available by October 31, 2025, covering a period of five years from April 1, 2026.

The Finance Commission is a constitutional body set up every five years and is responsible for giving non-binding recommendations on the allocation of certain revenue resources between the Centre and the state governments. It also defines the financial relations between the Centre and the states. A notification issued on Sunday spelt out three main terms of reference for the Finance Commission. The first is the distribution between the Union and the states of the net proceeds of taxes and the allocation between the states of their respective shares of such proceeds.

Second, it should recommend the principles which should govern the grants-in-aid of the revenues of the states out of the Consolidated Fund of India and the sums to be paid to the states by grants-in-aid of their revenues.

And, finally the measures needed to augment the Consolidated Fund of a state to supplement the resources of the panchayats and municipalities on the basis of the recommendations made by state Finance Commissions.

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