Having covered nineteen distinct Centre-state flashpoints and coordination mechanisms across this category, from NITI Aayog’s institutional redesign to Governor controversies to fund disputes, this final article pulls those threads together into a structured before-and-after comparison, closing out the Federalism and Centre-State Relations category.
Formal Fiscal Authority: Before and After
Before 2015, covered in more detail in our earlier article, the Planning Commission held binding authority to allocate central development funding to states through the Five-Year Plan process. After NITI Aayog’s replacement of that body, states gained a more consultative role through the Governing Council structure but lost that binding allocation authority, a shift a June 2026 analysis published through Countercurrents, headlined “NITI Aayog and Federal Rights: Recasting Centre-State Relations,” specifically characterised as trading formal financial leverage for an advisory, “recommendatory” institutional role.
The Rise of Conditional Central Schemes
Even as NITI Aayog’s own formal authority shifted toward advisory status, a separate and somewhat countervailing trend has continued growing throughout this period: the expansion of centrally sponsored schemes that come with specific conditions states must meet to access the funding, a pattern the same Countercurrents analysis specifically flagged as a form of informal centralisation continuing to grow even as formal fund-allocation power moved away from any single central body, illustrated concretely by disputes covered elsewhere in this category, including the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan funding linked to NEP compliance in Tamil Nadu’s language-policy dispute.
If you like this, you must read: Inter-State Council: India's Formal but Underused Forum for Centre-State Dialogue
Institutional Meeting Frequency: A Genuine Improvement
One area where the post-2014 period shows a clearer, less contested improvement over the pre-2014 arrangement involves the frequency of formal Centre-state institutional engagement. The GST Council, established in 2016, has held over 55 meetings since its creation, according to tracking referenced in comparative legal analysis of India’s cooperative federalism institutions, a considerably more active and regular engagement cadence than the older Planning Commission’s less frequent five-year-plan-cycle interactions with states, even though, as our earlier articles on both bodies documented, more frequent meetings have not eliminated genuine disagreement at those same meetings.
The Gap Between Rhetoric and Practice
A recurring theme across recent independent analysis of this period involves the specific gap between the government’s consistent “cooperative federalism” framing and the pattern of actual disputes documented throughout this category. A May 2026 analysis published through IndianRepublic, headlined “How India Uses Cooperative Federalism Rhetoric,” specifically critiqued this gap, arguing that while institutions like the GST Council and NITI Aayog’s Governing Council genuinely do bring states into more regular dialogue than existed before, the persistent pattern of disputes covered throughout this category, Governor delays, fund withholding, and language-policy funding leverage among them, suggests the practical relationship has retained meaningfully centralising tendencies even within this more dialogue-heavy institutional framework.
Also read: Finance Commission Devolution: How Funds Are Shared Between Centre and States
What Has Genuinely Improved Versus What Remains Contested
Weighing the full body of evidence covered across this category, a fair synthesis suggests some elements of Centre-state relations have genuinely improved in structural terms since 2014, more frequent formal engagement through GST Council and NITI Aayog meetings, a considerably more active peace-accord and northeastern development programme, and functional cooperation in areas like disaster response and vaccine distribution covered in our earlier article, while other elements remain genuinely and often sharply contested, including Governor-versus-elected-government tensions that produced a major Supreme Court reversal within a single calendar year, persistent fund-withholding disputes with opposition-ruled states, and unresolved questions including Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood restoration and the pending delimitation debate.
Why a Simple Verdict Isn’t Available
It would misrepresent the genuine complexity documented across this entire category to offer either a purely celebratory or purely critical single verdict on how Centre-state relations have changed since 2014, since the honest picture, consistent with the Countercurrents and IndianRepublic analyses cited above, is one of simultaneous, genuine institutional innovation in some areas and meaningfully increased practical friction in others, a mixed record that reflects India’s federal system continuing to work through inherent, structural tensions between central coordination and state autonomy that predate 2014 considerably, even as the specific mechanisms and flashpoints through which that tension plays out have evolved.
Bottom Line
Centre-state relations since 2014 present a genuinely mixed picture rather than a simple story of either successful cooperative federalism or straightforward centralisation: formal institutional engagement has become more frequent through bodies like the GST Council, and specific achievements including sustained peace accords and Northeast development funding are real, even as NITI Aayog’s shift to a purely advisory role, the rise of conditional centrally sponsored schemes, sharp and unresolved Governor-versus-state disputes, and persistent fund-withholding conflicts with opposition-ruled states together suggest the underlying tension between central coordination and state autonomy that has always defined Indian federalism remains as genuinely contested today as it was before 2014, just expressed through a different, more institutionally elaborate set of mechanisms.
Disclaimer: This article is based on publicly available government records and the full body of research referenced throughout this category and listed below. It is written for general informational purposes and does not represent an official statement from the Government of India.
Sources
FAQ
Has Centre-state fiscal authority become more or less centralised since 2014?
Both, in different ways. NITI Aayog lost the Planning Commission’s binding fund-allocation power, but conditional centrally sponsored schemes have simultaneously expanded, a pattern analysts describe as informal centralisation growing even as one formal centralised body’s authority diminished.
Has formal Centre-state engagement become more frequent since 2014?
Yes, genuinely. The GST Council alone has held over 55 meetings since 2016, a considerably more active cadence than the older Planning Commission’s five-year-plan cycle, though frequent meetings haven’t eliminated real disagreement.
Is there a single clear verdict on whether Centre-state relations have improved since 2014?
No. Independent analysis describes a genuinely mixed picture, with real institutional innovation in some areas coexisting with persistent, sometimes sharply contested disputes in others. —
