Bihar finance minister Samrat Choudhary on Thursday urged the 16th Finance Commission, currently on a three-day visit to Bihar, to grant the special category status to the state.

Listing the demands at the meeting with the finance commission, Choudhary, who is also the deputy chief minister, demanded the special category status twice.

Chief minister Nitish Kumar was also present at the meeting.

The commission was taken aback by the demand because it was something that was way beyond its terms of reference.

“The Bihar government demanded special-category status for the state in the memorandum submitted to us. But it is not under the purview of the finance commission,” the commission’s chairman Arvind Panagariya told reporters.

Panagariya pointed out that Centre has abolished the special category status, with exception to the northeastern states and three hill states, and has decided not to consider any fresh demands.

Asked about doing away with the provisions of the collection of cess and surcharges by the Centre, or allowing the states to do so instead, the chairman asserted that it was a Constitutional provision and only the Centre could initiate any amendment in it. “The chance that the Centre will do so is little,” he added.

Bihar has made a special request for a grant of over ₹1 lakh crore to address the all-round development needs of its various sectors.

“Bihar has also asked to include the Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) devised by the NITI Aayog as a key criterion for determining each state’s share from the divisible pool of tax revenues and 17.5 per cent of devolution should be based on it. The more the poverty, larger the share of the state in the tax revenue pool,” Panagariya said.

The chairman added that giving 17.5 per cent weight to the MPI in the devolution of tax revenues would benefit Bihar much because the state has the highest proportion of people living in poverty.

The memorandum submitted by the Bihar government to the finance commission has also sought replacing 10 per cent weight given to “forest cover” in the devolution by “incremental green cover” or “total green cover” to strengthen the state’s environment protection efforts.

Bihar has also sought that the commission should focus on population density and income distance in tax revenue devolution by the Centre.