South's needless alarmism over share of Central taxes, LS representation

T N Ninan writes cries of North-South divide at Centre uncalled for as each Finance Commission creates its own winners and losers

Does the South protest too much? Southern state chief ministers and ministers are getting together to protest against the terms of the latest Finance Commission. For the uninitiated, such a Commission recommends every five years how much of Central tax revenues should be shared with the states and, within that, what should be the share of each state. The brief given to the new Commission is that it should take into consideration the 2011 Census, and not the 1971 Census numbers which were considered in previous Commission reports. The last Commission had given weight to both 1971 and 2011.

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