Govt sets deadline for schemes

Govt sets deadline for schemes
ENS ECONOMIC BUREAU

NEW DELHI, SEPT 10: The government has set December 2000 as deadline for review of all schemes being run by different departments with a view to eliminating those programmes which have lost relevance.

According to a recent directive issued by cabinet secretariat to all ministries/departments, only those schemes, the existence of which will be properly justified by the respective ministries/departments, will be included in the Tenth Five Year Plan. The rest will be axed by the Planning Commission and finance ministry jointly.

The cabinet secretariat, at the behest of the finance ministry, has written to secretaries of all departments to "immediately begin a review of all their schemes, on a zero-based budget methodology, with a view to ascertaining whether they require continuation in the 10th Plan or not." The departments have also been asked to suggested changes and modifications to existing schemes for making them more effective. The exercise has to be completed before the deadline of December 2000.

In order to ensure probity in evaluation of ongoing schemes on zero-based budget methodology, the ministries/departments have been told to take up the exercise jointly with the Planning Commission. While undertaking the exercise, consideration will have to be given to convergence of various schemes, avoidance of multiplicity of implementation machinery and weeding out schemes schemes which are no longer required.

The letter also warns that if the concerned departments fail to carry out "the exercise with due diligence" within the current year, the Planning Commission and department of expenditure will not include schemes in the Tenth Plan.

The cabinet secretary, while reviewing pending proposals to be submitted to cabinet and cabinet committee on economic affairs (CCEA) at a meeting held earlier, noted with concern that a number of schemes have been continuing from one Plan to another without any examination based on zero-based budget methodology.

As many of these schemes have become a drag on exchequer, the Expenditure Finance Commission (EFC) and Public Investment Board (PIB) had suggested that either these should be scrapped or regrouped/modified for fulfilling the objectives for which they were initiated.

The finance ministry had undertaken a similar exercise earlier in 1999, but attempts yielded limited results because of the reluctance of ministries/departments to part with their respective projects/schemes. During the course of 1999-2000, only eight departments were able to complete the exercise resulting in discontinuation/merger of 69 schemes.

The current exercise, which has to be completed even before the formation of the Working Groups, is expected to provide better results as unjustified schemes will not form part of the Tenth Plan document. Secondly, the reports prepared by different ministries/departments will be used as inputs for the Working Groups, leaving scope for further modifications and pruning.