Challenges and Issues in Indian Fiscal Federalism

Book excerpt: This book discusses various dimensions of Indian fiscal federalism, focusing on the current fiscal imbalances – both vertical and horizontal – and their correction. Throwing light on different angles of this subject, it presents well-researched papers, which are divided into three sections. The first section, ‘Fiscal federalism and resolving the fiscal imbalances’, includes five chapters that discuss this theme and also explain the various strategies to remove the existing imbalances in India. ‘Fiscal decentralization for high growth’ which is the second section, explains how decentralisation leads to high economic growth and showcases empirical evidence from a few Indian states that are flourishing due to this policy. The third section, ‘Emerging issues’ offers six chapters describing several existing key concerns in fiscal federalism that have a major impact on achieving India’s development goals. Including contributions from leading academics in this field, the book will be of great interest to research scholars and policy makers alike. “Besides addressing the core issue of fiscal imbalances and ways to correct them, the [chapters] touch on several issues confronting the Indian fiscal system at the centre , state and local levels. The [chapters] are well researched and well argued. The book is a valuable addition to the literature on Fiscal Federalism.” – Dr. C. Rangarajan, Ex-Governor of Reserve Bank of India; Chairman, Madras School of Economics, Chennai, India.