Non-implementation of Ninth Plan schemes flayed

NEW DELHI, APR 21: A parliamentary committee has expressed distress' over non-implementation of several important Ninth Plan schemes due ...

NEW DELHI, APR 21: A parliamentary committee has expressed distress8217; over non-implementation of several important Ninth Plan schemes due to delay in procedural formalities and asked the government to streamline post-budget approval procedures to start the schemes immediately.

The Standing Committee on Agriculture has noted that the present system to accord approval consisting of various stages of sanction by Expenditure Finance Committee, Standing Finance Committee and Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, which has led to inordinate delays, should be reviewed and overhauled so that schemes approved by Parliament are put into operation without any delay.

quot;The whole procedure prescribed for according post-budget approval for plan schemes be thoroughly streamlined and made less time consuming so that the schemes approved by Parliament in the budget are started immediately to fulfill the hopes and aspirations of the people,quot; it said.

The Committee felt that there was a growing tendency on the part of the executive to cut down all the allocations for the plan schemes and also to reduce allocations drastically at the revised estimates stage, although the Parliament had made available these funds to all those schemes in exercise of constitutional powers.

The Committee recalled that in several cases, entire allocations for various new plan schemes of the Ninth Plan had been reduced to zero level at the revised estimates stage by the Planning Commission and the Ministry of Finance and these schemes became chronic non-starters.

quot;Such reductions come to the notice of the Parliament only through the Detailed Demands for Grants laid before the house at the fag end of the Financial year, a stage at which the Parliament has to helplessly acquiesce itself into a state of acceptancequot;, the report said.

Such reductions by the Planning Commission which is only an adjunct of the main executive without any constitutional sanction for its existence, amounts to exercise of powers that can only be exercised by the passing of several cut motions for which the Parliament alone is empowered under the constitution, it said.

Story continues below this ad

quot;The committee are of the strong view that such practices are a negation of of the basic principles of parliamentary democracy whereby extra-constitutional bodies, procedural devices and practices seek to undermine the supremacy of the Parliament over the Executive,quot; the report said.

Government, in its reply, had said that the Appropriation Act passed by the Parliament authorises the Government to include expenditure on a 8216;not exceeding8217; basis. Therefore, by spending less than what is authorised by the Act, there is no reach of act.