The study attempts to sketch the devolution of resources from the Centre through Finance Commissions to the fifteen major States of India. Expenditure for developmental processes of the States are mainly met from States’ own revenue and from the share of the States in the divisible pool. Devolution from the Centre plays a major role in materialising the developmental needs of the States and is a major determinant of the overall development of States. Allocation of these funds are in accordance with the criteria employed by the Finance Commissions and the criteria itself has changed over the years. This can have impact on states, and this impact need not be uniform across the States. Hence, component wise devolution over the 11th, 12^th and 13^th Finance Commissions and the role of federal transfers in bridging the development gap and in enhancing equity among the states is examined here. Attempt is made in this regard to analyze the devolution to the States by categorising of the States into High Income (HI), Middle Income (MI) and Low Income (LI) on the basis of their per capita income.