Autonomous institutions under central govt to introduce new user charges

All autonomous institutions under the central government are likely to introduce new user charges or even hike their existing rates in light of a finance ministry directive to generate revenue internally.

"The finance ministry had recommended last year that all statutory bodies of the government which provide services to the public should generate revenue and add to the government exchequer. So, the revised fee which we have proposed includes a service charge of 10 per cent for CARA," CARA Chairperson, Deepak Kumar told PTI.

CARA has proposed that adoption fee be hiked from Rs 40,000 to Rs 55,000 which include the 10 per cent user charge by the apex child adoption body.

The latest missive came after a March 2017 review of such autonomous bodies by the Niti Aayog.

It has now also been decided that the websites of all such bodies need to be updated with their annual reports and the amount of central assistance received in the last three years.

The push towards generating more revenue and to explore new avenues to generate funds was first initiated through an office memo by the expenditure department of GoI last year which linked central government aid to the autonomous body's performance.

"Administrative Ministries/Departments need to identify and categorise the services delivered through autonomous bodies for which cost based graded (free, partially subsidised, no subsidy, etc) user charges should be levied.

In case of services which are rendered against payment of user charges the government should at least recover the operating and maintenance cost for providing the services..." the 2016 memo stated.

While CARA's file is pending with the finance ministry, other autonomous bodies, sources said, are looking at avenues to generate funds.

Sources say that bodies like Prasar Bharati under the ministry of Information and Broadcasting, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India and the National Institute of Biologicals, under the ministry of health and family welfare and organisations like University Grants Commission and Jawahar Lal Nehru University and Delhi Development Authority are some of the autonomous entities that are under the scanner of the Niti Aayog, which has been tasked by the government to look at possible ways to cut down on wasteful expenditure.

The number of autonomous bodies currently is more than 500, while in 1955, it was just 35.