With total fund proposals of various Government departments crossing over Rs50,000 crore under the State Plan, shape of Annual Plan for 2015-16 fiscal is all set to be a much bigger size, say officials. According to sources, the Finance Department, after going though fund requirement proposals of all the departments, has asked Secretaries to re-visit their respective schemes and say the final word on their funds need within a week’s time. The Annual Budget exercise is at the final stage, sources added.
It may be noted that original State Plan for the year 2014-15 was Rs38,000 crore and with Supplementary Budget, it was scaled up to a little over Rs40,000 crore. Even though the State is facing financial crunch, the State Plan for 2015-16 is expected to be of bigger size as many pro-poor programmes are envisaged, said a Finance Department official.
Sources said while preliminary State Plan estimate was pegged at Rs42,000 crore, yet it would go up as funds’ proposal of performing departments are expected to be given favours. Departments’ spending upto December 31 of the last current fiscal would be taken into account for assessing their spending performance. A senior official said that Government spending by December-end was nearly 52 per cent.