Govt constitutes 14th Finance Commission to look into the pricing of utilities

04 Jan 2013 Evaluate

Under the chairmanship of former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Y V Reddy, the government has constituted the 14th Finance Commission, which will suggest steps for pricing of public utilities like electricity and water in an independent manner. While announcing the formation, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said it will also look into issues like disinvestment, GST compensation, sale of non-priority PSUs and subsidies.

Finance Commission is set up every five years to recommend principles governing the distribution of tax proceeds among Centre, States and local bodies. The Commission, would review the state of finances, deficit and debt levels of the Centre and states, keeping in view, in particular, the fiscal consolidation roadmap recommended by the 13th Finance Commission.

It would also recommend measures for maintaining a stable and sustainable fiscal environment consistent with equitable growth including suggestions to amend the Fiscal Responsibility Budget Management Acts. Further, with regard to the debt-stressed states, the Commission has been asked to propose steps for increasing revenues of states which are lagging.

The taxation efforts of the Central government and each state government and the potential for additional resource mobilization to improve the tax-Gross Domestic Product ratio in the case of the Union and tax-Gross State Domestic Product ratio in the case of the States would also be part of the recommendations of the Finance Commission  

In addition, it would suggest the level of subsidies that would be essential for sustainable and inclusive growth and sharing of burden between the Centre and states. Among other things, the Commission has also been asked to evaluate the non-salary expenditure of states and recommend steps for maintenance of capital assets. Moreover, the need for making the public sector enterprises competitive and market oriented, listing and disinvestment, and the relinquishing of non-priority enterprises would also form part of the recommendation.

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