The newly-constituted 15th Finance Commission held its first meeting on December 4 to discuss its terms of reference.
The panel, headed by former Revenue Secretary and former Rajya Sabha MP NK Singh also met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. "The Commission felt that wide-ranging consultations with all stakeholders, including various Ministries of the Union Government, all State governments, local bodies, panchayats and political parties of each State government, needed to be expeditiously initiated," said the Finance Ministry in a statement.
With its wide-ranging terms of reference, the panel may undertake analytical research and interact with think-tanks and domain experts.
To ensure a steady functioning of the commission, the Finance Ministry has already invited applications from interested officials to work in the commission's office which is being set up at Jawahar Vyapar Bhawan on Janpath in New Delhi.