The two latest finance commissions—the Fourteenth Finance Commission and the Fifteenth Finance Commission—mark a break from the past. The paper explores the structural shift in federal finances with the abolition of the Planning Commission and contemporaneous circumstances that shaped the approach of the Fifteenth Finance Commission and examines the intersections and divergence, continuity and change with the Fourteenth Finance Commission in terms of its treatment of and approach to the three core issues of vertical and horizontal devolution, grants-in-aid to the states and transfers to local governments. It argues that the pervasive impact of the pandemic has shaped the recommendations of the Fifteenth Finance Commission in several ways without compromising on the constitutional principles and retaining the balance in federal transfers between the union and the states and amongst the states. At a time when the growth prospects of the economy are uncertain, the innovative use of targeted grants linked to performance-based criteria for specified sectors through the states and local governments addresses glaring gaps in public services and potentially trigger reform in critical sectors.
