The Tamil Nadu way: How to reverse India's creeping centralisation

March 31, 2026·39 min·3 clips

Former IAS officer Ashok Vardhan Shetty reveals why Tamil Nadu's new report challenges India's constitutional centralist bias.

The question is federal balance. Bhagwati Sampath starts with Tamil Nadu's committee report and the state's older habit of probing Union-State relations, including the Rajamannar Committee formed in 1969. Ashok Vardhan Shetty does not treat this as a sudden complaint. He says the problem was there from the dawn of the Constitution because the design already leaned toward centralisation. For him, states are where policy meets the ground. If a state gets something wrong, the damage stays limited. If it works, other states or the Union can copy it. That is the pilot-testing argument. The opposite is a central scheme built for everyone before any state has proved it can handle local conditions. The National Testing Agency is his case in point. Shetty calls the NTA structurally and administratively weak: short of staff, dependent on deputationists and contract employees, and too reliant on outsourcing. Exams are the core work of an exam body, he says, so pushing that work outside opens too many places for leaks. Centralisation makes the stakes worse. Put exams across the country in one body, and one failure can travel far beyond one jurisdiction. His prescription is plain: disband the NTA and return exams to the states. On money, he wants untied block grants with a short negative list, so states can spend according to need. Another option is a menu, with the Government of India offering schemes and Tamil Nadu choosing what fits its stage of development.

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A grounded federalism discussion that keeps its attention on institutions and state autonomy.

The episode keeps its focus on federalism, state autonomy, and the committee report on Union-State relations. Bhagwati Sampath's exchange with former IAS officer Ashok Vardhan Shetty gives the discussion a constitutional center, with Tamil Nadu's long push for decentralization…

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Want a calm, serious case for why states should shape more of India's policy design?

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