With the economic stress that States have been put under due to the lockdown, the 15th Finance Commission must prioritize meaningful devolution...

DMK president M.K. Stalin urged the Fifteenth Finance Commission to prioritize substantial fiscal devolution to state governments during its crucial consultative meetings, highlighting the crippling financial stress inflicted upon regional administrations by the prolonged national lockdown. Stalin demanded a significant upward revision in the states' share of divisible central tax revenues from the prevailing forty-one percent to prevent catastrophic fiscal insolvency across India's regional economies.

Stalin emphasized that while state governments bear the primary constitutional burden of executing public health interventions, maintaining law and order, and distributing emergency food relief, their revenue collection capabilities were decimated by the complete shutdown of commercial activity. Meanwhile, the Union government continued to monopolize tax revenues and levy non-shareable cesses and surcharges that deliberately bypass the divisible tax pool mandated for state distribution.

Stalin warned that without an immediate expansion of statutory tax transfers and unconditional revenue deficit grants, states would be unable to sustain vital welfare programs or support struggling populations. He stressed that preserving cooperative federalism requires robust fiscal decentralization that equips state administrations with the financial resources necessary to overcome unprecedented economic devastation.