The Tamil Nadu government has requested the 16th Finance Commission to bring in a “mechanism to curb the indiscriminate levy of cess and surcharges” by the federal government. Calling for a cap of 10 per cent as existed during the 12th Finance Commission period, it told the commission that any excess collections should be merged into the divisible pool. Today, these collections constitute 16.83 per cent of the central government’s gross tax revenue, State government said. 

Finance Commissions are set up every five years to recommend the best way to divide the gross tax revenue between the central and the State governments and among the States. The 16th FC, which is in the process of consultations with all stakeholders, today met with the Tamil Nadu government, which made a detailed presentation.

The government observed that its share has been coming down from the first FC—from 15.25 per cent in income taxes and 16.44 per cent in central excise duties (since made into GST) to 4.079 per cent —despite representing 6.12 per cent of the country’s population.

Disaster risk management 

The State government said that with a 1,076 km coastline, Tamil Nadu incurs “substantial expenses” for disaster relief, restoration and mitigation. However, allocations under the State Disaster Relief Management Fund and the National Disaster Relief Management Fund “have consistently fallen short of actual needs.” Accordingly, it has asked for an increase in the SDRMF corpus by 50 per cent for 2026–27, with 90:10 funding pattern from GoI and States. It has also called for a 10 per cent annual increase in the fund size, replacing the current 5 per cent. Further, it wants the current Disaster Risk Index to be replaced with a new index that reflects parameters like coastline length and urbanisation. 

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