Top Bureaucrat Ally South's Concerns Over Central Funds

As a financial tug of war brews between northern and southern states over division of Central funds, we speak to Subhash Garg, Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Government of India. Speaking to NDTV, he allayed the concerns of southern states over the use of 2011 census in the Terms of Reference of the 15th Finance Commission. He said 2011 census is not the only factor and that it's been used as it's latest. "The population is indicator of needs...if you have to make needs assessment, you need to take current population," he said, adding, "Terms of Reference do not prevent Finance Commission to take a view to either assign different weights to different things or to assign different weights to progress made since 1971".