R N Senapati To Head 5th State Finance Commission

Bhubaneswar: Ahead of the visit of the 15^th Finance Commission, the Odisha government has constituted the 5^th State Finance Commission with retired IAS officer and former State Election Commissioner (SEC) Rabinarayan Senapati as its chairman.

Apart from Senapati, former professor and head of the department of Commerce of Utkal University Samson Maharana, retired OAS officer and former Director, Municipal Administration, Sanjib Kumar Mishra and Dr Asit Mohanty, professor of Xavier Institute of Management, are the members while secretary of the Panchayati Raj DK Singh is the associated members of the Commission.

The Commission is mandated to identify assignment of taxes to be levied by urban local bodies (ULBs) and Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) and recommend what percentage of the state’s own taxes is to be shared with ULBs and PRIs and also devolution of funds (grants-in-aid) to these institutions from the state contingency fund, ways and means for devolution of resources from the state level to ULBs and PRIs for five years and also measures to empower these institutions.

The recommendations of the fifth State Finance Commission should be valid for five years commencing April 1, 2020.

Notably, the first State Finance Commission was headed by Justice SK Mohanty. However, renowned economist Baidyanath Mishra took over and submitted the report to the government.

Former MP Trilochan Kanungo was the chairman of the second Finance Commission while well-known economist Prof Sudhakar Panda and Retired IAS officer Chinmay Basu were the chairmen of the third and fourth respectively.