TN govt to present state autonomy report in assembly

Chennai: Tamil Nadu govt will present the report of the Justice Kurian Joseph-led three-member committee on state autonomy and Union-state relations to state legislative assembly on Tuesday. This report examines contemporary federal challenges and offers concrete, actionable recommendations to rebalance federalism and strengthen cooperative federalism within the constitutional framework.

Part I of the report is divided into 10 chapters, covering decentralisation and state autonomy, constitutional amendments, territorial integrity of states, language, the role of governors, delimitation, elections, education, health, and GST. "The objective is not to weaken the Union, but to right-size it, enabling it to focus on genuinely national responsibilities while restoring to the states the autonomy essential for effective governance and aligning authority with responsibility," said a govt statement. "A Union that diffuses its energies across functions better performed by states and local bodies risks distraction from the larger national challenges that only it can address," it added.


Following its presentation to the assembly, the report will be made available on govt portal. "It was hard work over the last three months, nearly 120,000 words and 408 printed pages and 12 to14 hours of work every day," said a source. This initiative represents the 4th major national-level review of Union-state relations and the second undertaken by Tamil Nadu, following the Rajamannar committee constituted by former chief minister M Karunanidhi in 1969.

The Rajamannar committee had recommended creation of an inter-state council for coordination among states, and broader devolution of funds from the Centre. It also proposed the transfer of several subjects, such as oil resources, from Union list to state list. Nationally, the Sarkaria and Punchhi commissions also reviewed Centre-state relations and proposed significant recommendations.

In a first for the country, govt decided to provide "open access" to Tamil version of the report. This means any individual or institution can publish the entire book or parts of it, provided they acknowledge the source and do not alter the content. This measure is intended to widely disseminate the report's ideas and recommendations.

Bloomsbury, a publishing company, reportedly agreed to co-publish the English version of the report and market it both within India and internationally. The state govt plans to translate the report into 10 other languages, including Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Gujarati, Odia, Punjabi, and Assamese. Open access will also be granted for these translated versions.