(file picture) Montek Singh Ahluwalia , economist and former Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission of India
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With the State Finance Budget in the offing, the Tamil Nadu Government has constituted ’Revenue Augmentation Committee’ with eminent economist former Deputy Chairman of Union Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia as its Chairperson.“The Committee, is created to suggest measures for the sustainable augmentation of the State‘s tax and non-tax revenues, by improving compliance, plugging leakages, rationalising rates, fees and exemptions, and identifying new and under tapped sources, so as to strengthen State’s fiscal self-reliance and create the fiscal space to meet its developmental commitments,” a TN Finance Department notification read. KP Krishnan, Chair Professor of Economics at the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER); Arbind Modi, Tax Policy Expert and Convener of the Task Force to Rewrite the Income Tax Act (2017-18); Najib Shah, Former Chairman of the CBEC; MA Siddique, TN Finance Secretary; and .M Suresh Babu,Director, Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, are the members of the Committee.specific recommendationsThe Committee shall function for a period of three months and shall submit reports and specific recommendations to the TN Finance department within a period of three months, the GO said.The Committee will advise the Government on measures to augment the State’s Own Tax and Non-Tax revenues and to improve revenue buoyancy, efficiency, plug systemic leakages. It will also help Identify new and under tapped sources of revenue, and examine non-tax avenues including PSU dividends, land and asset monetisation, and improved user charges. Interestingly, among its terms of reference is also to recommend ways of enhancing revenue from alcohol through changes in regulation and taxation policy on liquor.The notification on the formation of the Committee also mentioned that the recently published White Paper on fiscal management of Tamil Nadu has observed that the decline across major taxes like GST, VAT, and excise including revenues from mines and minerals has been mainly driven by administrative choices, leakages and corruption in the past rather than an underlying economic slowdown.“In this context, there is a need to align the growth of revenue in sync with the growth in the economy and to augment and sustain the resource base,” the Finance Department order said.“The Committee is empowered to call for any record, returns, data or reports from any Department, Public Sector Undertaking, Board or revenue-collecting agency of the State, and to require officers to furnish information in person, and the departments shall comply within the time stipulated...,” the order says, offering broad powers to the Committee.The Committee may also constitute sub-groups or working groups for individual revenue heads (such as State Excise / TASMAC, Registration and Stamps, Mines and Minerals, Commercial Taxes, Motor Vehicles and non-tax revenue).Published on July 27, 2026
