Montek, PM meeting

The Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia yesterday met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and briefed him on the progress in the Plan discussions and the central Plan allocations.

"The Prime Minister was briefed on the Plan discussions. Since he is leaving for Thailand tomorrow to attend the BIMSTEC summit he was given an overview on the progress made so far," sources told Business Standard.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram had on Tuesday met the Planning Commission deputy chairman and asked the commission to prioritise expenditure and focus on weeding out irrelevant centrally sponsored schemes in the short-term.

Schemes which are important from the point of view of the Common Minimum Programme should be the focus, while those which are 'nobody's priority' should be weeded out, he had said.

Schemes which are of national importance, especially welfare schemes are likely to be retained at the centre, while the rest would be transferred to the states over a period of time.

The FM has directed the plan body to make utilisation of funds more purposeful and allocate funds in line with the possibility of usage.

While an overnight change in plan allocations is not possible, he said that programmes with very low allocations, which are unlikely to be effective, should be phased out. The money should then be diverted to high priority programmes