INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
New Delhi: Fifteenth finance commission chairman NK Singh pushed for an alternative institutional mechanism to keep a check on the fiscal
consolidation road maps of both the centre and states
Singh also pitched for circumscribing the Article 282 of the Constitution that allows centre and states to make grants for any public
roadmap applicable equally to the union and states
of India governor YV Reddy and advisor (finance) to Telangana government, GR Reddy.
The fiscal responsibility and budget management (FRBM)
review committee headed by Singh had in 2017, recommended a fundamental shift in fiscal consolidation by targeting overall government debt
Committee suggested was creation of an independent fiscal council on which consensus seems to still have eluded.
But we do need a mechanism
for enforcement which will be equally applicable for both centre and states finance commission or any other (body) can work out and lay out
Emphasising that rules of the game should be same for both, he said Article 293 (3) provides a constitutional check over borrowings and
state government liabilities but there are no such restrictions on the Centre.
The government has projected both FY19 and FY29 fiscal
deficit at 3.4 per cent of GDP.
Referring to the book, a part of which focuses on cesses and surcharges becoming a disproportionate
