The Andhra Pradesh government appears to be heading towards tightening expenditure on various programmes of non-Plan nature from next year.
In a bid to streamline expenditure on various programmes based on their relevance and outcomes in the next annual Budget, the government on Wednesday asked the heads of departments (HoDs) to explain the consequences of non-funding of a particular scheme or work besides showing the justification if needed to continue.
The finance department while asking the HoDs to submit their Budget proposals both under plan and non-plan categories by November 1 to kickstart Budget preparation for the next financial year has made it clear that they should review the existing non-plan schemes very critically so that those schemes which do not serve any tangible purpose are dropped or phased out or reduced. For this purpose, the respective departments have to justify the objectives of the scheme or work and its relevance to overall objectives in the present context apart from explaining as to what would happen if the scheme is stopped altogether.
After N Kiran Kumar Reddy took over as chief minister, the government had tried to minimise the spending on various schemes, including housing programme that had been either introduced or expanded on ‘saturation’ principle by the YSR government. Under the saturation principle, a particular scheme meant for a particular target group has to cover all the eligible beneficiaries.
As BPL cards issued to almost 90 per cent of the over 20 million families in the state, most of these schemes have become universal barring a few particularly in rural areas. Under the fee reimbursement programme, which covers students at all levels including the high cost professional courses like medicine and engineering extending to both public and private institutions introduced by the YSR government, the state had to spend over Rs 5,500 crore in a single year.
Opposition parties and students had protested when the government tried to introduce new eligibility criteria for this programme accusing it of intentionally diluting the welfare schemes. Stating that plan-schemes would also be subjected to pre-budget scrutiny, the finance department has asked the HoDs that the provisions proposed under the Plan expenditure should under no circumstances be mixed up or merged with non-Plan provisions.