Chennai: The Tamil Nadu government has constituted a Revenue Augmentation Committee under economist and former Deputy Chairman of the Union Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia to suggest measures for sustainable augmentation of the state's tax and non-tax revenues.
The high-level panel will focus on improving compliance. Plugging leakages, rationalising rates, fees and exemptions, and identifying new and under-tapped sources, so as to strengthen the state's fiscal self-reliance and create the fiscal space to meet developmental commitments, the government said. The move aligns with the chief minister Joseph Vijay led government's lofty vision to plug leakages and corruption, the government said.
Ahluwalia, a former Member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, will be the chairperson of the Committee, which will have as members Chair Professor of Economics at the National Council of Applied Economic Research K P Krishnan. Tax policy expert Arvind Modi, former chairman of CBEC Najib Shah, Additional Chief Secretary to TN Finance Department M A Siddique,and director, Madras institute of development syudies, chennai, Suresh Babu.
As per a government order issued on July 24, the " white paper on fiscal management of Tamil Nadu" published in June 2026 sets the roadmap for better revenue mobilisation and administrative reforms, and has inter alia observed that the decline across major taxes like GST, VAT and excise, including revenues from mines and minerals has been mainly driven by administrative choices, leakages and corruption in the past rather than an underlying slowdown.
It has also indicated that resolving this shortfall requires long-term, multi year reforms focused on curbing corruption, enforcing compliance, and mobilising resources efficiently.
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