No central government scheme to run endlessly -Governance Now

No central government scheme to run endlessly

There will be a sunset date for all schemes and an outcome review will be carried out

GN Bureau | July 24, 2017

#Arun Jaitley #budget #sunset clause #schemes #Central government #Jitendra Singh #MGNREGA

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Centrally sponsored schemes will now onwards run for a fixed period of time, thanks to a sunset date. An outcome review will also be carried out.

In public policy, a sunset clause means that it shall cease to have effect after a specific date, unless further legislative/administrative action is taken to extend it.

There are 28 centrally sponsored schemes running across the country. All have sunset dates except Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme of the Ministry of Rural Development, which is under Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act.

The centrally sponsored schemes (CSS) are schemes that are implemented by state governments of India but are largely funded by the central government with a defined state government share.

Every new scheme sanctioned will have a sunset date and outcome review, announced finance minister Arun Jaitley in his 2016 budget speech

In the past, every scheme used to be revisited at the end of each plan period for their continuation to the next Five Year Plan.

It has been decided that after the Twelfth Five Year Plan, the medium term framework for schemes and their sunset dates will become co-terminus with the Finance Commission Cycles, the first such one being remaining Fourteenth Finance Commission (FFC) period ending March, 2020, said Arjun Ram Meghwal, minister of state for finance and corporate affairs in written reply to a question in Lok Sabha

At the end of the Twelfth Plan period all ministries/ departments would undertake an outcome review and re-submit their schemes for appraisal and approval, unless the scheme has already been made coterminous with the FFC period. The same process will apply to the subsequent Finance Commission Cycles.

A ministry of finance office memorandum dated August 5, 2016 said that making it coterminous with the FFC period is “necessary because fixation of medium term scheme outlay needs a clarity of over flow of resources, which is likely to be available to both central and state governments over the finance commission period”.

“Accordingly, it is directed that at the end of the Twelfth Plan period all ministeries/departments should undertake an outcome review and re-submit their schemes for appraisal and approval, unless the scheme has already been made coterminous with the FFC period. The department of expenditure will, on its part, communicate, in consultation with the budget division, the outlays for both central sector and centrally sponsored schemes over the remaining FFC period,” it said.

Union minister Jitendra Singh had said on February 20, 2016 that in the times to come, the department of personnel and training will also chalk out a possible plan for exit of government sectors from hospitals, air services etc and a sunset clause will also be attached to every new scheme.

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