New Delhi: Aiming to facilitate implementation of the centrally-sponsored welfare schemes, the union cabinet yesterday merged many of them to bring down the count from 170 to 66 while allowing 10 percent flexibility to the states.
“The states had been complaining that the guidelines of centrally-sponsored schemes were rigid. We have now made the guidelines more flexible and given 10 percent flexibility to the states in the implementation of such schemes,” Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia told reporters after the cabinet meeting here.
This means that out of the Rs1.86 trillion the government spends on the centrally-sponsored schemes, around Rs.187bn would be available to the states to be spent at their discretion.
The move, said Ahluwalia, was an experiment and the limit of flexibility could be increased by the ministry concerned later if it turns out to be successful.
Though work on the restructured schemes would begin this year, the bulk of it would take place only in the next financial year, he said.
According to Ahluwalia, the cabinet decided to restructure centrally-sponsored schemes in the Twelfth Five Year Plan period (2012-17) from 170 to 66, including the 17 flagship programmes, with significant outlays for major interventions in health, education, irrigation, urban development, infrastructure, including rural infrastructure, and skills development.
The reduced number of schemes meant the district administration would find it better to implement and monitor them, Ahluwalia added.
IANS
