Finance minister Yashwant Sinha told financial advisers of various ministries on Friday to strictly comply with the decision of cut non-Plan expenditure. The decision was taken in August but could not be implemented due to elections.

According to senior finance ministry officials, about 40 financial advisers working in different ministries attended a meeting called by Sinha on Friday.

They have also been told that there would be no increase in outlay during the current fiscal. The minister said that supplementary demands of grants would be presented in during the Winter Session only to take care of additional outlay to take care of defence, dearness allowance and pension.

It was also decided at the meeting that a central monitoring group would be set up in the Planning Commission to coordinate expenditure cut by various ministries. The group would also assist the ministries in preparing zero-based budget for the next financial year.

The ministry, officials said, was proposing to start zero-base budgeting from the next year.

Sinha has also asked the advisers to show the 10 per cent cut in non-Plan expenditure while presenting the budget estimates for the next financial year.

The government, according to figures available, had been able to keep a check on the non-plan expenditure during the current financial year. Non-Plan expenditure during April-August totalled Rs 74,690 crore which was marginally up from Rs 74,512 crore recorded during the corresponding period last year. The government during the first five months had spend 38 per cent of the budgeted amount of Rs 2,06,882 crore on the non-Plan side.

The finance minister asked the financial advisers to obtain utilisation certificate before releasing fresh funds for schemes. The advisers have also been told to report unspent balance on schemes to the ministry by December 31, 1999.

The minister has asked the financial advisers to identify old schemes which had lost the utility and relevance so that the same could be weeded out.