India's Fiscal Federalism - Visualising Rs. 111 Lakh Crore
Interactive analysis of India's centre-state financial transfer system: tax devolution, grants-in-aid, and fiscal flows across 28 states from FY 2020-21 to 2024-25.
A consequential policy system is public, but not accessible.
India's fiscal federalism affects education funding, infrastructure, and public services in every state. The data exists in Finance Commission reports and Union Budgets, but public understanding is limited because the system is not visualized clearly.
Policy complexity
Finance Commission formulae, tied grants, untied grants, CSS schemes, and centre-state politics make the system hard to parse.
Public impact
Transfers shape what state governments can actually spend on education, health, infrastructure, and welfare.
Domain-led framing
Six years of UPSC preparation shaped the questions: who contributes, who receives, and why that pattern exists.
Turn abstract fiscal flows into state-level comparisons.
The dashboard lets users explore net contributor/receiver status, devolution trends across five years, and per-capita transfer metrics. Every data point is sourced from Finance Commission and Union Budget documents rather than secondary summaries.
The key design choices make the fiscal system understandable.
Net contributor vs receiver framing
This lens makes the abstract concrete: Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Gujarat contribute more, while many northeastern and low-income states receive more.
Five-year trend view
Single-year snapshots hide direction. A five-year view shows whether states are becoming more or less fiscally autonomous.
Per-capita normalization
Absolute transfers favor large states. Per-capita comparisons reveal the equity logic, or its absence, in the devolution formula.
An interactive map and chart system for India's fiscal flows.
The project shows state-level net fiscal positions, devolution trend lines from FY 2020-21 to FY 2024-25, and per-capita transfer comparisons. It demonstrates quantitative research, policy domain knowledge, and accessible public data storytelling.
What I learned
This is the clearest demonstration of what domain expertise adds to data work. The numbers are public, but insight depends on knowing which states are underserved, which instruments drive equity, and where the formula may be failing.