Headlines       Vol. 1 Issue 42-43

Mar 22- Apr 6,   1999

Nagaland restricts plan and non-plan expenditure To bail itself out from the ongoing resource crunch, the Nagaland Government has clamped restrictions on plan and non-plan expenditure during the current financial year. The measure has been adopted to restrict the closing budget deficit approximately at last year's level. The State Government has decided to restrict the plan expenditure, except the basic minimum services (BMS) and minimum need programmes (MNP) components to 50 per cent of the plan outlay. It has also decided to cut non-plan expenditure except the salary component by 20 per cent of the budgeted amount during the current year. According to official sources such measures was necessitated due to the constraint arising out of a shortfall in the expected receipts from its share of Central taxes, State's internal resources and a large accumulated deficit carried over from previous years along with mounting debt servicing obligations. The State finance department recently revealed that the State Government might fail to restrict the anticipated deficit of Rs. 352 crore in this year's budget, saying that the deficit might touch Rs. 450 crore mark due to hike in expenditure. The centrally-sponsored scheme (CSS) money and funds received from non-lapsable pool of Central resources during this month (March '99) would be released only during the next fiscal year to enable the State Government for better implementation of the schemes.Except in case of genuine shortage of salary and unavoidable expenditure on law and order and border related requirements, the State Government ruled out allowance of any additional expenditure to the voted budget. For effecting cuts in expenditure, departments concerned have been asked to work out their priorities and submit proposals to the finance department.

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