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Plan panel for clipping Central schemes

G. Srinivasan

NEW DELHI, May 28

AS part of its ambitious agenda to reorient the very planning process itself and restructure its organisational set-up, the Planning Commission has plumped for pruning a plethora of Central and Centrally-Sponsored Schemes (CSS) to rationalising them.

Official sources told Business Line that currently, nearly 50 CSS in agriculture sector, 15 major schemes in rural development and more than 30 schemes in education sector exist. The weeding-out, transfer and convergence of these Central and CSS must be pursued ``vigorously'' to improve expenditure management and efficacy of Plan initiatives.

There is a need to ensure greater convergence -- inter and intra-sectoral -- of various schemes with analogous objectives/target groups/regions and only such CSS schemes should be retained by the Central ministries/departments that are of n ational significance, the sources added.

In this regard, the sources said, a suggestion has been made for setting up of high-powered Inter-Ministerial Group under the Member (Plan Panel) concerned which should be tasked with the responsibility of monitoring the process of weeding out, convergen ce and transfer of the CSS, keeping in view inter-sectoral linkages in the design and implementation of the schemes in a time-bound fashion.

What is more, the sources said that it should not hesitate to leverage the annual Plan allocations to make the Ministries accept the weeding, convergence and transfers of the selected schemes and, if need be, take a note on this subject to the Cabinet. T his task of rationalising the Plan schemes should be wound up urgently, with the requisite political consensus, so that expenditure management of Plan schemes should become a reality in the Tenth Plan (2002-07).

Alongside, there is need to fix a common funding formula for all CSS, as against the extant practice of different proportion of grant and loan component -- ranging from 100 per cent grant to 50 per cent. This way, the selection of a CSS by the Sta te is not merely swayed by the funding pattern of the concerned scheme.

The number of CSS for each ministry/department should also be frozen, the schemes being restricted to address issues of national importance only. The State should then have the leeway to choose the schemes that are most required by them from the availabl e basket of the CSS schemes in a particular ministry/sector.

It is also proposed that the role of the Planning Commission in monitoring the implementation of Plan schemes ought to be clearly spelt out. This must be largely defined in terms of conducting selected Impact Studies to evaluate the effectiveness of Plan spending in meeting the adumbrated goals of the programme/scheme and also in terms of undertaking or commissioning comprehensive Evaluation Studies.By undertaking Impact and Evaluation Studies in a concerted manner, involving as far as possible, univers ities and research institutions the Planning Commission could, while building up data base/feedback on Plan schemes, bolster research practices in such institutions and set an example in fostering a mutually-beneficial partnership between them and the in dustry.

As part of its redefined role, the Plan panel should progressively link devolution of incremental increase in Budgetary support to Central sector as well as States to the headway made in implementing the agreed policy framework/issues of governance/speci fic project in that sector/State. To start with, in case of State sector, funds should be set apart to facilitate reforms in crucial sectors such as the power sector (and the SEBs) with a view to not only improving the States' own resources for developme nt but also their capacity and credibility to adopt reforms in other sectors. This would render the States more attractive to private capital flows.

The sources have also deplored the development that the credibility of Plan process has been gravely undermined by the inability of the Government to provide resources agreed for (at the time of the approval of the Five-Year Plan), while finalising the A nnual Plans.

In real terms, only about 90 per cent of the approved budgetary support for the Eighth Plan could be provided for. It is likely to be no different for the Ninth Plan, the sources said adding that in operationalising five-year Plans, this restricting of P lan size has often been counterproductive.

It has also encouraged the tendency to present inflated requirement of budgetary support to fund plans by the States as also the Union Ministries, the sources noted.