New Budget norm may hit SC Sub Plan

Legislation governing the SC and ST Sub Plan is posing a unique problem in the preparation of 2017-18 Budget, in the wake of Centre’s decision to introduce a new Budget model.

In 2013. the Kiran Kumar Reddy government had enacted a law to earmark funds for the SC&ST Sub Plan, which was adopted by Telangana state after bifurcation. All departments were to allocate a percentage of funds in their Plan Budgets to the SC and ST Sub Plan on the basis of population

The budget mainly consists of four heads — Plan, nonPlan, revenue expenditure and capital expenditure. From this year, the Centre has decided to introduce a new system with two heads — revenue expenditure and capital expenditure.

Officials said when the Plan had been dispensed with, there would be no separate ‘sub plan’ category.