 "finance commission")
The government on Wednesday appointed three full-time and one part-time member of the 16th Finance Commission, which was constituted on December 31, 2023.
The full-time members include Ajay Narayan Jha, member of 15th Finance Commission and former secretary of expenditure, Annie George Mathew, former special secretary of expenditure and Niranjan Rajadhyaksha, executive director of Artha Global.
Soumya Kanti Ghosh, group chief economic advisor of State Bank of India, has been appointed part time member of the 16th Finance Commission.
“The Sixteenth Finance Commission has been requested to make its recommendations available by October, 31, 2025, covering an award period of five years commencing April 1, 2026,” a press statement by the ministry of finance said.
The government had appointed former NITI Aayog vice-chairman Arvind Panagariya as chairman of the panel and bureaucrat Ritvik Ranjanam Pandey was named its secretary.
The Finance Commission is a constitutionally-mandated body established once every five years to devise a formula for distributing net tax proceeds between the Centre and the states as well as among states and local bodies.
More From This Section
Currently, India shares 41 per cent of federal taxes with states as recommended by the 15th panel.
The 16th FInance Commission would also review the present arrangements for financing disaster management initiatives with reference to the funds constituted under the Disaster Management Act, 2005.
The erstwhile 15th Finance Commission under NK Singh had recommended that states be given 41 per cent of the divisible tax pool of the Centre during the five-year period of 2021-22 to 2025-26, which is the same as recommended by the 14th Finance Commission.
Ajay Narayan Jha
A 1982 batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the Manipur cadre, Ajay Narayan Jha has been a member of the 15th Finance Commission. A former secretary of department of expenditure, he was appointed member in the 15th finance commission in place of Shaktikanta Das, the current Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor. Prior to his stint as expenditure secretary, Jha was holding the post of secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change. Two months prior to his retirement, Jha was also appointed finance secretary in December 2018. He also served as secretary of the 14th Finance Commission. Jha, a postgraduate in history from St Stephen’s College, holds a degree in executive development from Harvard Kennedy School.
Ajay Narayan Jha
Niranjan Rajadhyaksha
Niranjan Rajadhyaksha is executive director at Artha Global, a policy consulting organisation and has also been research director and a senior fellow at the IDFC Institute. Rajadhyaksha was earlier the executive editor of financial daily Mint and received the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism in 2012. He bagged the B.R. Shenoy Award for Economics in 2017 and was awarded the Jefferson Fellowship by the East-West Center in Hawaii in 1998. Rajadhyaksha received the Society of Publishers in Asia Awards for excellence in opinion writing in 2010 and 2011. He is a member of the academic advisory board of the Meghnad Desai Academy of Economics and in the board of trustees of the Centre for Civil Society.
Niranjan Rajadhyaksha
Soumya Kanti Ghosh
Soumya Kanti Ghosh is currently group chief economic advisor, State Bank of India, and has previously worked with companies such as Tata AIA and American Express. Ghosh has extensively worked in the area of employment and co-authored a pioneering work to capture payroll data for India. He provided valuable inputs to key central government schemes like PM Kisan and Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). Ghosh, who started his career at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, is a doctorate from Jawaharlal Nehru University. His thesis was on ‘International Capital Markets and Macro-Policies in Developing Countries with Special Reference to India.’ He is a regular columnist in national media and has extensive publications in national and international journals. Ghosh writes mainly on contemporary, economic, business and unconventional issues of policy interest and debate.
Soumya Kanti Ghosh
Annie George Mathew
Annie George Mathew was a 1988 batch Indian Audit and Accounts Service (IA&AS) officer. She served in various capacities in the department of expenditure, ministry of finance. Mathew held the posts of joint secretary, additional secretary and special secretary in the department. She was also a part-time member in the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA). Mathew was also director on the board of Indian Overseas Bank. She received her graduate degree from the University of Delhi.
Annie George Mathew
