The members include former union Expenditure Secretary Ajay Narayan Jha, who was also a member of the 15th FC. Jha is a 1982-batch Indian Administrative Service Officer who has had extensive experience in the Finance Ministry, working on allocation of funds for schemes and for states.
Credit: Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Government of India, GODL-India via Wikimedia Commons
Bengaluru: The Union Finance Ministry, on Wednesday, announced four members to the Sixteenth Finance Commission (16th FC) who will join chairman Arvind Panagariya to work on recommending the devolution of tax pool between the centre and the states for a five-year period of 2026-27 to 2030-31.
The members include former union Expenditure Secretary Ajay Narayan Jha, who was also a member of the 15th FC. Jha is a 1982-batch Indian Administrative Service Officer who has had extensive experience in the Finance Ministry, working on allocation of funds for schemes and for states. He retired in 2019 and was appointed to the 15th FC after that.
Former Special Secretary in the Finance Ministry Annie George Mathew, State Bank of India’s Chief Economic Advisor Soumya Kanti Ghosh and columnist and Artha Global Executive Director Niranjan Rajadhyaksha will be the other members. Of these, Ghosh will be a part-time member while others are full-time members.
The 16th FC will make recommendations on the distribution between the centre and the states from the divisible pool of taxes, and allocations between the states. The divisible pool consists of all central government tax proceeds except cesses and surcharges, which the centre does not share with states.
The Commission will also recommend the principles and criteria which will govern various grants to states out of the Consolidated Fund of India, and the measures needed to augment states’ funds to supplement the resources of the panchayats and urban local bodies.
The 16th FC has also been tasked with reviewing the present arrangements on financing disaster management initiatives, with reference to the funds constituted under the Disaster Management Act and make appropriate recommendations on the same.
The commission has been requested to make its report available by October 2025 covering a period of five years from April 1, 2026, and is expected to begin its work soon.
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