By laksh5382 
Sixteenth Finance Commission Chairman Arvind Panagariya on Tuesday said the West Bengal government has urged the commission to increase the vertical transfer of taxes to states from the current 41 per cent to 50 per cent. The state government also proposed significant changes in the criteria for weightage in horizontal allocation.
The government has proposed to include “urbanisation” as a criterion for horizontal transfer of states’ share in central taxes during a meeting with Finance Commission members.
“In vertical transfer, the West Bengal government in its petition demanded that the transfer be increased to 50 per cent,” Panagariya said after a meeting with the state government delegation headed by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Notably, most of the 13 states the commission has visited so far have sought to increase devolution of taxes to 50 per cent, while some asked the panel to increase it to 45 per cent from the existing 41 per cent Is. Vertical transfer is the distribution of tax income between the Center and the states in the country.
Bengal has sought 7.5 per cent weightage for urbanization and the state has sought to increase the weightage of demography to 20 per cent from the current level of 12.5 per cent, Panagariya said.
The Chief Minister met the Commission with suggestions and raised the issue of “Centre deprivation”. He raised the issue as to why states have to follow the Centre’s lead on centrally-aided schemes when states are also bearing the financial burden.
Panagariya, who chaired the meeting, accepted Bengal’s arguments and assured that the Commission will carefully evaluate the suggestions after consulting all 28 states.
During the day, the five-member panel also met representatives of trade bodies, industry associations and political parties.