In a move to rationalise the Centrally Sponsored Schemes under the agriculture ministry, the government will bring down the number of such schemes to just eight from the current 52 in the 12th Five Year Plan that starts from the next financial year.
Such a pruning will not only help in better management of resources, but will also do away with duplication and overlapping of programmes, agriculture secretary P K Basu said on Monday.
The Planning Commission, which held a meeting with senior officials from the ministry of agriculture last week, has accepted this proposal and will now work towards incorporating it in the 12th plan document, he told reporters here.
After merging, these will be operated as per the current model of Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana.
That scheme, which is centrally sponsored, seeks to enhance farm production on a sustainable basis by meeting the ever-changing challenges of climate change so as to achieve four per cent average annual farm growth over a sustained period.
A central theme of the programme has been devising state-specific and region-specific strategies to meet the local needs and delegating decision making powers to the local authorities.
The programme since its inception in 2007-08 has been a success, pushing overall grain, pulses and oilseeds production in the country to record highs. So much so, that despite one of the worst droughts in 2009, the country managed to produce a reasonable quantity of grains.
Now officials say that not only be other schemes be designed on the lines of RKVY, but the programme will itself be strengthened in the 12th FYP — and will be divided into two parts. “The first part,” Basu pointed out, “will be RKVY infrastructure, while the second will be RKVY non-infrastructure.” He said the need was felt to divide the RKVY into two parts as not much has been done to improve rural infrastructure through RKVY.
As per the agriculture ministry’s plans, it will be responsible for only eight centrally sponsored schemes. These are schemes on farm plant and machinery, horticulture, oilseeds and oil palm, National Mission on Sustainable Agriculture, National Food Security Mission, National Rainfed Area Authority, a centrally sponsored scheme for extension support to agriculture and a scheme to improve seed production, quality and distribution.
“All the other schemes, like National Bamboo Mission, will be subsumed in these eight CSS,” Basu said. The measure will not only help in better targeting of resources but will also help in better utilisation of the available staff strength with the ministry.
The official said the Planning Commission had been very appreciative of the model in the RKVY. “We are planning to ask all other ministries and departments to frame their CSS in the same manner that would give better decision making powers to local officials,” he added. In the 13th FYP, the agriculture ministry plans to propose more pruning of centrally sponsored schemes it runs.
