CHENNAI: The three-member high-level committee on union-state relations, constituted by the state government to examine evolving federal dynamics, on Monday submitted part I of its report to Chief Minister M K Stalin at the Secretariat in Chennai.
The committee, set up on April 15, 2025, is chaired by former Supreme Court judge Justice Kurian Joseph. Its members include former Indian Maritime University vice-chancellor and retired IAS officer K Ashok Vardhan Shetty, and former Tamil Nadu Planning Commission vice-chairman Dr M Naganathan.
Described as a “non-partisan” initiative, the exercise marks the fourth major review of union-state relations at the national level and the second such effort taken by the state government after the Rajamannar Committee (1969-71).
Earlier national-level examinations were carried out by the Sarkaria Commission (1983-88) and the Punchhi Commission (2007-10). According to one of the members of the committee, the latest review was necessitated by significant constitutional, fiscal and institutional changes that have taken place since those commissions submitted their recommendations. “It has been backbreaking work over the last three months, with nearly 1,20,000 words, 408 printed pages, and 12-14 hours of work every day,” one of the members of the committee told TNIE.
Part I of the report, prepared in both English and Tamil, contains 10 chapters covering the aspects of federal governance, including decentralisation and state autonomy, constitutional amendments, territorial integrity of states, language policy, the role of governors, delimitation, elections, education, health and the Goods and Services Tax framework.
The report presents a detailed assessment of contemporary federal challenges and offers “concrete and actionable” recommendations aimed at restoring federal balance while strengthening cooperative federalism within the constitutional framework. Two additional parts of the report, each comprising 10 chapters, are currently under preparation.
“In a first-of-its-kind move, the Tamil version of the report will be released under an open-access framework after it is tabled in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly. Individuals and institutions will be permitted to print, reproduce or distribute the Tamil text from the official PDF, provided proper attribution is maintained and no alterations are made,” the release from the state government added.
