RAS question
The Fifteenth Finance Commission covered the period:
Correct answer: (C) 2021-22 to 2025-26.
The Fifteenth Finance Commission covered the five-year period from 2021-22 to 2025-26.
Explanation
The Fifteenth Finance Commission, chaired by N K Singh, submitted its report for 2021-22 to 2025-26 to the President of India. The PIB release also clarifies why this is the tested period: under its terms of reference, the Commission was mandated to give recommendations for five years from 2021-22 to 2025-26. A separate report for 2020-21 had already been submitted earlier and accepted by the Union Government, so 2020-21 is not part of the final five-year award period. In fiscal devolution, the Commission recommended that states receive 41% of the divisible pool of central taxes, lower than the Fourteenth Finance Commission's 42% because of the reorganisation of Jammu and Kashmir.
Why the other options are wrong
- (A) 2022-23 to 2026-27 shifts the award window one year too late and is not the five-year period stated in the Commission's terms of reference.
- (B) 2019-20 to 2024-25 does not match either the separate 2020-21 report or the final five-year report for 2021-22 to 2025-26.
- (D) 2020-21 to 2025-26 incorrectly folds the earlier one-year report into the final five-year period, which the PIB release identifies as 2021-22 to 2025-26.
Concept
This tests Finance Commission award periods and fiscal federalism, a recurring RAS economy theme because tax devolution and Centre-state financial relations are core to public finance. The trap is usually the overlap between an interim one-year report and the final five-year recommendation period.