Finance commission recommendations aren't a one-day match: N K Singh

In a Q&A, the chairman of the 15th Finance Commission is emphatic that cooperative federalism remains robust and dwells on the possibilty of dividing agro infra cess between Centre and states

Fifteenth Finance Commission chairman N K Singh concedes that incidents of cesses and surcharges have significantly gone up between the 14th and 15th finance commission recommendations. He tells Dilasha Seth and Indivjal Dhasmana that the 15th finance commission was cognizant of this fact. That is why it made robust recommendations on grants to partly compensate states for this trend. Edited excerpts:

Why did you retain tax devolution to states at 41 per cent, especially in this crisis kind of a situation?

Irrespective of the nature of government, no state that the finance commission visited was not wanting to see an