The Group of Ministers, headed by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, will discuss the long-pending issue of restructuring of Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) in its first meeting to be held tomorrow.
The GoM will discuss the restructuring of 170-odd schemes into 79 for efficient implementation and monitoring. However, there are differences of opinion among ministries on trimming of some of the schemes and these issues will also be deliberated in the meeting, said the officials.
There were a total of 173 Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) and Additional Central Assistance (ACA) schemes at the end of 11th Plan (March 2012). Concerned over proliferation of CSS and ACA 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".
The committee headed by B K Chaturvedi, Planning Commission member, had earlier recommended bringing down CSS to 59 from 147 to avoid overlap. The committee report had said the number of CSS with small outlays do not achieve the objective of making an impact across states. It had also proposed to have a system of flexi-funds, under which state governments can use 20 per cent of the Budget allocated for CSS (10 per cent in case of flagship schemes), within the broader framework of the programme.
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