The government is likely to increase the plan allocation for government schemes by 15 per cent to Rs 3.73 lakh crore during 2010-11.
Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia today held discussions on plan allocations amid demand for higher support from various ministries.
Sources in the North Block said the finance ministry could agree to allocate a modest Rs 3.73 lakh crore of the gross budgetary support (GBS) as the government was already weighed down by a huge fiscal deficit. The GBS is the amount the government allocates to various schemes of the Centre, including flagship programmes such as NREGA and Bharat Nirman projects.
“We will have a very satisfactory outcome but I won’t tell you what the outcome is,” Ahluwalia told reporters when asked about the discussion on the GBS. This is the second time Ahluwalia met Mukherjee on the plan outlay in a fortnight.
Sources said Mukherjee had indicated to Ahluwalia that given the government’s priority to plug the fiscal gap, it would not be possible to raise the GBS beyond 15 per cent over the estimates of 2009-10.
On higher demands made by various ministries, Ahluwalia had earlier said the commission “tries to match their demands with the available resources”.
Union ministries have together asked for an 82 per cent increase in the gross budgetary support for 2010-11 over the estimates for 2009-10, while the Planning Commission insisted on an 18 per cent rise.
For 2009-10, the allocation at Rs 3.25 lakh crore was a 17 per cent rise over the revised estimate for 2008-09. Compared with the original support estimated at the beginning of 2008-09, the increase was a massive 34 per cent.