Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) ordinarily covers such subjects which are enumerated in State/concurrent list and are crucial for realising national development goals. While the schemes are implemented by the State Governments, their guidelines are framed by the concerned Central Ministries after stakeholder consultation including consultation with States. This information was given by the Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Planning, Shri Rao Inderjit Singh in a written reply in Lok Sabha today.

          The Minister said that while there is no such specific information that the guidelines of the schemes are very complex, from time to time, many State Governments have raised the issue of looking into the guidelines of the CSS. Their key concern is about providing of requisite flexibility to States to meet their requirements. Many states have pointed out that because of lack of flexibility, it is difficult to spent allocations in many of these schemes.

          He said that in view of above, the Planning Commission set up a Committee under the Chairmanship of Shri B.K. Chaturvedi, Member, Planning Commission to look into the issue of restructuring/rationalization of CSS for enhancing their flexibility, scale and efficiency, which submitted its report to Planning commission on September, 2011.

Shri Rao said that based on the recommendations and comments thereon by States and Union Ministries, in June 2013, the government has approved restructuring of the CSS which is as follows:

 (a) Restructure the existing CSS/ACA Schemes in the Twelfth Five-Year Plan into 66 Schemes, including Flagship Programmes.

The Government/Cabinet, while approving the aforesaid re-structuring has also inter-alia approved following for improving their efficiency.

 (i) At least 10% of outlay of CSS be kept as flexi fund which may be used for funding innovations or taking up the activities/projects which even though not strictly as per the guidelines of the scheme, serve the broad objective of a scheme.

(ii) A provision for introduction of State specific guidelines in a CSS has been provided. For this an Inter-Ministerial Committee under the Co- chairpersonship of the Secretary (Planning Commission) and Secretary (Department of Expenditure) with representative of the State Government and the Administrative Ministries concerned has been constituted to consider the suggestions of the State Governments for introduction of State specific guidelines for implementation of the schemes. 

These two measures are expected to provide flexibility in implementing the scheme and would improve their efficiency.

(iii) For each new CSS/ACA/Flagship scheme, at least 25% of funds may be contributed by the General Category States and 10% fund by the Special Category States including States of J&K, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

 (iv)The Budget provisions of these schemes would be provided to the Administrative Ministry so that central fund would flow to the States through Consolidated Fund of States. 

He said that this arrangement is also expected to further improve the working of these schemes at the State level and improve their efficiency.

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