The panel of chief ministers working on rationalisation of Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) is likely to finalise its report in a couple of months and submit it to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The sub-group on CSS, comprising 11 chief ministers, will deliberate on draft report on CSS prepared by a working group, headed by NITI Aayog CEO Sindhushree Khullar, on April 27.
The panel would meet again after April 27 meeting to finalise their report on the basis of presentations given by various ministries and view expressed by chief ministers. The final report containing recommendation of the panel would then be submitted to the Prime Minister.
"We will put a draft report before the sub-group having chief ministers on board for deliberation on April 27. We will call another meeting after that to finalise the report to be submitted to the Prime Minister," Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the convener of the panel, told reporters here.
Chouhan was here in the capital to preside over a meeting where various ministries made presentations mainly on 17 flagship schemes including rural employment guarantee.
He said, "There are three types of schemes including programmes under various Acts. Secondly, those where expenditure sharing will be 50:50 (between Centre and State). There are schemes which would be transferred to states and they would decide whether to implement those or not."
It is almost certain that the number CSS would be reduced from existing 72 but Chouhan did not reveal sub-group's view on that.
He said,"the number of CSS to be continued would be finalised in the next meeting of sub-group."
He said that it was very productive meeting with different
departments like rural development, health and education, which run centrally sponsored schemes.
"We have discussed the ways for improving implementations of the CSS and difficulties being faced by state while implementing these programmes," he added.
As per the government's fiscal policy strategy statement, over 30 CSS have been identified for transfer to the states because expenditure on them has already been taken into account as state expenditure.
There are certain CSS such as MGNREGA which can neither be discontinued nor transferred as there is legal obligations. It is proposed that only 8 CSS be delinked from support from the Centre.
The rationalisation of CSS is important in view of Centre recent decision to raise states share in taxes to 42 per cent from 32 per cent.
The sub-group on CSS has Chief Ministers of eleven states including Rajasthan, Nagaland, Manipur, Jharkhand, Kerala, Jammu & Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh.
