5th meeting of Economic Advisory Council of Fifteenth Finance Commission held

Speed Post News Network

New Delhi : The fifth meeting of the Economic Advisory Council of the Fifteenth Finance Commission (XVFC) was held in New Delhi on December 16, 2019. Chairman and Members of the XVFC, members of the Advisory Council and some special invitees attended the meeting.

Advisory Council Members were updated by the Commission regarding the additional terms of reference extending XVFC’s term till October’2020. Additional ToRs also asked the Commission to submit two reports- one, for the year 2020-21 and second report for the five year period of 2021-22 to 2025-26. Advisory Council was informed about submission of the 2020-21 report and now the Commission is on its next task of preparing the report for 2021-26 period.

Possible macro assumptions for the Commission’s award period relating to real growth, inflation etc were discussed in detail. Issues like the structural shift in inflation, the relationship between the GDP deflator and the consumer price inflation and possible trajectories of movement in real activity were discussed.

Tax revenues and expenditure patterns emerging both at the Union and the States level and possible way to improve tax collection for additional resource mobilization also figured in the discussion. Issues related to stabilisation of Goods & Services Tax (GST), relationship between GST Council and Finance Commission, and GST compensation being paid to States and issues related to compliance and adherence to Fiscal responsibility legislations (FRLs) enacted by respective governments were also discussed at the meeting. The need for bringing in fiscal  transparency was underlined during  the discussions.

The Advisory Council Members present were Dr M Govinda Rao, Dr Indira Rajaraman, Dr Sudipto Mundle, Dr Omkar Goswami, Dr  Arvind Virmani, Dr Surjit Bhalla, and Dr Prachi Mishra. The Special invitees to the meeting included-Dr. Ajit Mishra, IEG; Dr Manoj Panda, IEG; Dr Rathin Roy, NIPFP; Dr Kavita Rao, NIPFP; and Puja Mehra, Economist, according to a PIB release.