Montek Singh Ahluwalia to head Tamil Nadu Revenue Augmentation Committee

Published 27 July 2026 · local

The Tamil Nadu government has constituted a Revenue Augmentation Committee under the chairmanship of Montek Singh Ahluwalia, economist, former Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission

The Tamil Nadu government has constituted a Revenue Augmentation Committee under the chairmanship of Montek Singh Ahluwalia, economist, former Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, and former Member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council. The committee has been tasked with recommending measures for the sustainable augmentation of the State’s tax and non-tax revenues by improving compliance, plugging leakages, rationalising tax rates, fees and exemptions, and identifying new and underutilised sources of revenue. The government that had already presented a white paper on the state’s finances said there was a need to align the growth of revenue in sync with the growth in the economy and to augment and sustain the resource base. The objective of the committee, the government said, is to strengthen the State’s fiscal self-reliance and create the fiscal space needed to meet its developmental commitments. According to a Government Order issued by the Finance Department, the committee will function for a period of three months and will be treated as a Class I Committee for the purposes of travel, hospitality and other related expenditure.

The other members of the committee are K.P. Krishnan, Chair Professor of Economics at the Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) and Honorary Professor at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), New Delhi; Arbind Modi, tax policy expert, Convener of the Task Force to Rewrite the Income Tax Act (2017–18), and former economist in the International Monetary Fund’s Fiscal Affairs Department; Najib Shah, IRS (Retd.), former Chairman of the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC), former Commissioner of Customs at Jawaharlal Nehru Custom House (JNCH), Nhava Sheva Port, former Additional Director General (Anti-Evasion), Mumbai, and former Joint Secretary (Drawback) in the Union Finance Ministry; M.A. Siddique, IAS, Additional Chief Secretary to the Government, Finance Department, Government of Tamil Nadu; and M. Suresh Babu, Director, Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS), Chennai. The committee will identify new and underutilised sources of revenue, examine non-tax avenues including dividends from public sector undertakings, land and asset monetisation, and improved user charges.

It will also recommend measures to strengthen revenue security by plugging systemic leakages, curbing tax evasion and addressing administrative inefficiencies in revenue-collecting departments through structural reforms and greater use of technology. In addition, the committee will recommend ways to enhance revenue from alcohol for human consumption through changes in regulation and taxation policy on liquour. The government has stated that the committee will meet at the direction of its Chairperson. Raja Gopal Sunkara, Joint Secretary to the Government, Finance Department, will serve as the Convener. The committee has been empowered to call for any records, returns, data or reports from any government department, public sector undertaking, board or revenue-collecting agency of the State. It may also require officers to appear before it and furnish information in person. All departments have been directed to comply with the committee’s requests within the stipulated time.