Finance Ministers of three southern States and the Chief Minister of Puducherry have resolved to enlist the support of all non-BJP States to put pressure on the Centre and appeal to the President to rework the Terms of Reference (ToR) of the 15thFinance Commission.

Kerala Finance Minister Thomas Isaac announced this while briefing newspersons about the deliberations of a conclave here on Tuesday that discussed the impact of the ToR.

Participants decided to involve West Bengal, Punjab, Odisha and Delhi before submitting a memorandum to President Ramnath Kovind and also explore legal options, if needed, to amend the ToR.

They would also try to elicit the support of Tamil Nadu and Telangana, which did not send representatives at the conclave here. BJP Chief Ministers too are welcome to join, but would have to abide by the memorandum, Isaac said.

A similar conclave would be held in Visakhapatnam in April-end or early-May to finalise the joint memorandum to be submitted to the President.

The Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation here would function as the Secretariat of the Group of Ministers and prepare a draft memorandum that would be finalised at the Visakhapatnam meeting.

The Ministers were sore over the Centre’s arbitrariness in preparing the ToR and felt it to be a conscious effort to cut the Central share of taxes to the States.

The ToR would affect the vertical devolution of taxes to States and none could afford to abstain from the issue flagged by the conclave, the Kerala Finance Minister said.

The Centre was attempting to cut State’s devolution to fund its own schemes. State governments would be compelled to dump its own welfare schemes in favour of incentives for implementing the Centrally-sponsored schemes.

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