News Round up

National

Outcome Budget Published

Money to be spent on telecom sector

cited at Rs. 17186 crore with BSNL
laying 75 lakh lines

The national highway development

programme outlay at Rs 8,800 crore

Golden Quadilateral project to be

completed by December 2006

North-South, East-West highway

corridors to be completed by 2007

44% projected jump in coffee exports

Rs 200 crore expenditure for the

setting up of five apparel parks

Acquisition of 50 aircraft by
Air India.

Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram

n the Union Budget Speech delivered

on February 28, 2005, Finance
Minister P Chidambaram voiced: I
must caution that outlays do not
necessarily mean outcomes. The people
of the country are concerned with
outcomes. The prime minister has
repeatedly emphasised the need to
improve the quality of implementation
and enhance the efficiency and
accountability of the delivery
mechanism. In a bid to deliver on the
UPA governments promise of ensuring
positive development outcomes from all
major programmes, Chidambaram
presented before Parliament, on August
25, a 723-page document titled
Outcome Budget: 2005-06. This lists
the specific development results that the
government aims to achieve with the
outlays made for different schemes in
the annual budget. The Outcome Budget
covers 44 ministries and 61
departments; nine ministries including
Defence, External Affairs, Parliamentary
74 Advanc'edge MBA October 2005

Affairs and Atomic Energy have been

left out. While the budget does not really
give one any information about the
actual picture or the fate of projects and
programmes at the local micro level, it
does empower all stakeholders with
crucial data and information on expected
outcomes. To that extent, it enables civil
society to keep a vigil on the utilisation
of outlays and measure actual outcomes
against promised deliverables. It is in this
sense a significant step towards
ensuring good and transparent
governance.
Some highlights of the Outcome
Budget:
Subsidy outlay on LPG and kerosene
of Rs 3,600 crore

Expenditure to enhance refining

capacity at state-owned oil companies
put at Rs 6,163 crore

Rs. 400 crore to be spent for revival

of sick public sector units

PM visits
Afghanistan

anmohan Singh
became the first
Indian
Prime
Minister to visit the
war-ravaged country of Afghanistan
in 29 years. Dr. Singh held talks with
President Hamid Karzai and other
Afghan leaders on a range of bilateral
and regional issues. During the
historic visit, India announced an aid
of $50 million in addition to the $500
million already pledged earlier. The
two countries also signed three
accords covering areas of education,
agriculture and healthcare.