13th Finance Comm asks Megh govt to augment CF

Shillong, Apr 10: The 13th Finance Commission today asked the Meghalaya government to augment the Consolidated Funds to supplement the resources of the Panchayats and Municipalities.

The Commission also gave specific recommendations on sharing of tax receipts between the Centre and the States and also for outlining the principles for providing grants-in-aid to the states out of the Consolidated Funds of India, said 13th Finance Commission Chairman Vijay Kelkar. Mr Kelkar today held a meeting with the senior economic experts and administrators of the country, including from the North Eastern Region, such as the NEC, NEHU etc, where measures were called for improving allocations to the major infrastructure projects in the region based on Public-Private Partnership(PPP) model.

The Finance Commission is expected to submit its final report by October 2009. The recommendations of the Commission will be effective between 2010 and 2015. In making its recommendations, the Commission will take into account the issue of generating surpluses for capital investment, potential for additional resource mobilisation to improve the tax - Gross Domestic Product ratio in the case of the Union and the need to improve the quality of public expenditure to obtain better outputs and outcomes, etc.

The Commission had earlier held meetings in New Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Pune, Mumbai and Chandigarh and will be holding more such meetings at the regional level in other parts of the country in the coming months. As parts of its efforts to gather views and suggestions, the Commission has also launched a website http://fincomindia.nic.in.

UNI