The government on Thursday approved a major programme to restructure the centrally sponsored schemes (CSS), a move that would bring down the number of such schemes from 147 to 66 across sectors to ensure effective implementation and monitoring during the 12th Five-Year Plan. The exercise would also alter the scheme guidelines to suit requirements of the states and give them greater flexibility to spend up to 10% of CSS funds outside the scheme in any similar project. The full restructuring will become applicable from the next financial year.
The decision was taken by the Union Cabinet which considered a proposal brought before it by the Planning Commission. Last month, a group of ministers (GoM), headed by agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, had approved the restructuring of 147 CSS into 66 schemes by merging schemes with common goals and weeding out ones that had become irrelevant.
?We have now reduced CSS to 66. There are many different schemes in one area (like horticulture). We have condensed them to one scheme,? Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia told mediapersons after the Cabinet meeting.
He said that fewer schemes would make it operationally easy for district collectors, who largely oversee their implementation. ?The Cabinet decision provides greater flexibility to the state in running these CSS as these may now have state-specific guidelines which may be recommended by an inter-ministerial committee constituted for this purpose,? he said.
?The Cabinet also approved creation of a flexi-fund from the 10% of outlay for CSS that could be used by states for any other innovative spending suited to the specific requirements of a state,? he added.
At present there are 147 CSS mostly focusing on promotion of health, sanitation, providing food security, child welfare and education, which are supported by the Centre. The list includes flagship schemes like MNREGA, ICDS, Mid-Day Meal Scheme, Sarva Shikha Abhiyan among others. While the restructuring exercise would not touch flagship schemes, it would overhaul several others by either weeding out a few, or merging others that serve a common purpose and transfer the remaining to the states for funding and administration.
The restructuring proposal was in line with the recommendations of the BK Chaturvedi Committee, which had suggested bringing down CSS to 59 from 147 to avoid an overlap. While its recommendations have largely been accepted, certain schemes have been retained at the insistence of administrative ministries.
The GoM on CSS restructuring was constituted to iron out differences among ministries like agriculture and tribal affairs, which wanted to maintain some of the schemes for development of the sector.
Concerned over the proliferation of the schemes, finance minister P Chidambaram in his Budget speech had announced that ?the schemes will be restructured into 70 schemes. Each scheme will be reviewed once in two years?.
Under the restructuring plan, it is understood that schemes such as the National Bamboo Mission, National Mission on Seed, Rainfed Area Development Programme, National Project for Cattle and Buffalo Breeding, Fodder Development Programme, Utilisation of Fallen Animals, Project Tiger, National Afforestation Programme, Project Elephant, National Mental Heath Programme, Adult Education and Skill Development Programme, Pre-Matric Scholarship for Minorities, and Provision of Urban Amenities in Rural Areas may either be merged with a broader scheme or weeded out. The Centre is also likely to offer few schemes to a state if they oppose closure of some CSS. Close to 44% of the schemes have an average annual outlay of less than R100 crore.
Of the total CSS provision of R6,60,506.40 crore during the 11th Plan, the nine flagship CSS alone constituted R5,24,465.99 crore, or 79.4% of the spend. The budgetary allocation for CSS in 2011-12 is about R1, 88,000 crore.
The CSS are special programmes run by central ministries and administered by state governments. While the Centre provides funds for these schemes from its gross budgetary support (GBS), states also pitch in with a portion of the funding. The share of all CSS as a percentage of GBS has increased continuously in the last three Plans. In the 11th Plan it went up to 41.59% (CSS provision of R6,60,506.40 crore) as against 38.64% in 10th Plan, and 31% in the Ninth Plan. The government now wants to bring down this share to close to 35% during 12th Plan.
