 "New process to check, finance central schemes from FY18")
With the end of Plan and non-Plan classifications of spending from Union Budget 2017-18 onwards, the Narendra Modi government will also assess and finance centrally sponsored schemes (CSS) in a new manner.
So far, CSS are monitored on three parameters — input, activity and output. Starting next year, there will be the additional parameters of outcome and impact. It is on these five measures that the government will monitor the progress of and finance its flagship programmes, including the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, mid-day meal schemes, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, among others.
Additionally, whereas till now the sunset dates of these schemes were concurrent with the five-year plans, they’d now be concurrent with the five-year Finance Commission periods.
Going forward, the government will pay attention to not only the output it gets from a scheme for putting in a certain amount of money but also outcomes, to be compulsorily tangible and quantifiable. And, impact — the influence a scheme’s results have on national economic and social indicators.
A senior official explained thus: “Take a primary education scheme. Your input is the stationery, school infrastructure, salaries to teachers. Your process is teaching. Output is children’s learning. Now, the outcome will be children putting that into further use, as in the number going on to secondary and higher education or skill programmes. The impact will be the numbers this scheme would add to indicators like basic primary education, secondary education, skilled workforce, etc.” As reported in Business Standard earlier, the targets for expenditure will be set on a three-year rolling basis. Hence, the various departments, while placing their demands, will project deliverables for the coming financial year, based on the allocation promised and also expected outcomes for the next two years. These numbers will be evaluated by the expenditure department at the end of each financial year. The move to an outcome-based budget stems from Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s announcement in his 2016-17 Budget speech that such a step would be taken. “To improve the quality of government expenditure, every new scheme being sanctioned will have a sunset date and outcome review,” he’d said in February. As the 14th Finance Commission (FC) period will already be two years old in 2017, the sunset period for schemes will be three years. From the 15th FC on, it will be five years. The new norms for schemes will help the government eliminate the difference between the existing Plan and non-Plan classification of expenditure at the end of the present (12th) five-year Plan (2012-2017).
The new guidelines will help bring in the concept of outcome evaluation, with the aim of improving the delivery of public goods and services to citizens, the finance ministry said. Adding that this will be part of the major expenditure reforms initiated by the government.
MEASURING PERFORMANCE
- So far, only input, process, output of central schemes monitored
- From Budget 2017-18 onwards, quantifiable outcomes and impact to be monitored
- Flagship schemes, including the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, mid-day meal schemes, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, to be monitored
- Departments have to place demands on three-year rolling basis
- Outcomes to be projected for three years
