Mon Nov 18 15:53:17 UTC 2024: ## Tamil Nadu Seeks ₹6.84 Lakh Crore from Finance Commission for Development

**Chennai, November 18, 2024** – The Tamil Nadu government has submitted a memorandum to the 16th Finance Commission outlining its substantial investment needs totaling ₹6.84 lakh crore. This includes ₹5.32 lakh crore for urban infrastructure, ₹62,000 crore for the power sector, and ₹43,600 crore for industrialization. Significant funding requests also target modernization of public transport (₹7,000 crore), the blue economy, healthcare, and waterbody restoration (₹5,000 crore each), heritage conservation and tourism development (₹1,200 crore each), sports and e-governance (₹1,000 crore each), and accessibility improvements for the differently-abled (₹500 crore).

The state advocated for changes in both vertical and horizontal devolution of funds. It proposed including all non-tax revenues in the divisible tax pool or increasing the state’s share to compensate for any loss. For horizontal devolution, Tamil Nadu suggested reducing the weightage given to income distance, area, and forest & ecology criteria, while increasing the weightage of demographic performance.

Concerning disaster risk management, the state requested a 50% increase in the State Disaster Relief Fund (SDRMF) corpus for 2026-27, with a 90:10 funding pattern from the central and state governments respectively, and a 10% annual increment thereafter. It also proposed replacing the existing Disaster Risk Index with a new one incorporating factors like coastline length and urbanization, and earmarked allocations for urban flooding (₹2,500 crore), drought (₹2,000 crore), and coastal management (₹1,000 crore). Further, Tamil Nadu sought an increase in grants to local bodies to at least 5% of the divisible pool, with a 50:50 rural-urban split, and a recalculation of inter-state shares based on urban and rural population relative to national averages. The state also requested the ability to determine the inter-se distribution among local bodies based on its State Finance Commission’s recommendations.

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