The Hindu Business Line : Plan panel pitches for higher gross budgetary support

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New Delhi Jan. 24 The Planning Commission is pitching for an enhanced amount of gross budgetary support (GBS) in real terms to the Central Plan in fiscal 2007-08, the inaugural year of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan, in the light of the compulsions of the UPA Government to implement credibly its flagship programmes for building social infrastructure.

Official sources said that normally the GBS is decided only towards the end of January or early February so that it forms the budgetary numbers when the Union Budget is presented on the last working day of February.

Demands high

When contacted, the Planning Commission Deputy Chairman, Mr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, told Business Line here that the demands of the Ministries for Plan funds remain very high with their aggregate demands for 2007-08 amounting to double the total allocation of Rs 1,31,285 crore in the current fiscal. He said that though inflated demands are a routine phenomenon of the annual plan process, they are specially high this year because Ministries have also slotted in the 11th Plan schemes which have not yet been approved and have not phased out 10th Plan schemes which need to be phased out.

Mr Ahluwalia confirmed that member-level meetings had been completed and he has been interacting with the Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, on a couple of meetings and hopes to reach a positive outcome by the end of this month. He is, however, optimistic that a substantial increase in the GBS could be feasible considering the requirements of priority sectors and the increased demand for flagship programme.

The sources said that at an internal meeting presided over by Mr Ahluwalia, the progress of the flagship programmes was discussed threadbare. It was felt that if the outlay for the flagship programmes were to be maintained at the extant level, some reduction would be inevitable in other programmes. They said the total GBS to be made available for the Plan for 2007-08 could comprise of a core GBS of Rs 2,00,000 crore and an additional provision of Rs 10,000 crore which would be available to specific programmes/Ministries subject to the Ministries scoring stated expenditure levels.

While this figure of GBS assuming expenditure comes up to the expectation is Rs 2,10,000 crore, the Finance Minister had, the sources maintained, given a cue that the possible size of the Plan could be Rs 2,00,000 crore. Now the gap of Rs 10,000 crore needs to be bridged to arrive at the Plan panel putative GBS calculations of Rs 2,10,000 crore for the inaugural year of the 11th Plan, the sources added.

Concerning the termination of centrally-sponsored schemes (CSS) that had outlived their utility, the sources said that as per the recommendations of the expert group to evolve proposals for restructuring CSS, only 25 CSS which had an outlay of Rs 300 crore and above during 2006-07 were suggested to be continued during 11th Plan and the balance 130 CSS with an outlay below Rs 300 crore per annum were to be wound up. However, after consensus, it was deemed necessary to retain another set of 27 CSS relating to North East Region, Special Category and SC/ST/Minorities/Community Development and thus the lingering 103 schemes were likely to be axed at the end of the current 10th Plan period that is to be over on March 31. The sources added that the savings effected by this pruning exercise in the CSS would be utilised elsewhere in the Plan proposals and would form the core component of the Annual Plan 2007-08.

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