THOSE WERE THE DAYS: TALES FROM THE 15TH FINANCE COMMISSION

 The Finance Commission has played a critical
role in India’s federal structure since 1952. Every five years, this
constitutional body produces a report recommending what share of the Union
Government’s divisible tax pool should be devolved to the states, and how
this aggregate should be distributed among the different states, among other
recommendations on fiscal governance. In between its appointment and
submission of its Report, the Finance Commission tends to spend the
intervening period in the relative secrecy of internal discussions and state
visits. Despite the excitement about the Commissions in the media, and among
the public, leaders and bureaucrats in states, little is publicly known about
the rich experiences that the members and staff of the Commission gain while
visiting all the states of our large and diverse country, and their
interpersonal interactions. Those Were the Days captures vignettes of such
experiences of the 15th Finance Commission. It is a book not of history or
economics or even secret deliberations within the Commission, but one that
captures the joys of working as a team, a sense of discovery of the unity in
diversity that is India and the great camaraderie that it enjoyed with leaders
and civil servants in the different states.