| Commission officials are of the view that the other option may be to change the design from centrally-sponsored, administered or even public-private partnerships to central schemes that are administered directly by the central departments. |
| Failing this, commission officials feel, the government will need to cut Plan revenue expenditure by at least Rs 10,000 crore in the next two years to achieve the targets of the FRBM Act. |
| Schemes such as Bharat Nirman, Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, Employment Guarantee Scheme, Backward Regions Grant Fund and National Horticulture Mission were essential to develop human capital, which was as critical as investment in physical capital, a Planning Commission official told Business Standard. |
| Some of these schemes are supported by grants, which are classified as revenue spending. In another instance, the viability gap financing for roads and other infrastructure projects being channeled into the public-private partnership mode are shown as revenue expenditure in the Budget while the same would have been capital expenditure, had the projects been executed departmentally. |
| The minimal requirement would appear to be an amendment to the FRBM Act to change the definition that currently classified all grants as revenue expenditure, the official said. |
| With the country's economic growth rate projected at around 8 per cent and a realistic chance that existing gaps between different regions and different classes of people could be removed if people were empowered, it was the right time to debate the subject, officials said. |
| "There are many cobwebs that exist, even at the level of financing the plan, which can be cleared through such debate," they added. |
| The FRBM Act requires the revenue deficit to be reduced to zero in 2008-09 from the current deficit of over 2 per cent of the gross domestic product. |
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