Andhra Pradesh Finance Minister Y Ramakrishnudu on Tuesday demanded more power for state governments, asserting that 80 percent of the development needs to be done by states.
"Without asking any state governments, the government of India arbitrarily decided Terms of Reference which is against law of the land. We've to see that more power is given to states. 80 percent of development will be done by states and only 20 percent by the centre," Ramakrishnudu said here in a meeting with the finance ministers from four southern states.
Hosted by Kerala, the meeting had officials from Andhra Pradesh, Puducherry, and Karnataka.
The finance ministers met to discuss their concerns over the Terms of Reference of the 15th Finance Commission.
The 15th Finance Commission, which was set-up in November 2017, recognised population as an important criteria for distribution of taxes.
The body had said that it will use data from the 2011 census while making recommendations for the five-year period, which begins in 2020.
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However, the southern states, want the recommendations to be based on the 1971 census data.
The southern states have raised concerns over the population-based formula for tax sharing between the Centre and states.