NITI Aayog invites proposals to evaluate 28 centrally-sponsored schemes

NITI Aayog invites proposals to evaluate 28 centrally-sponsored schemes
In order to rationalise the available resources, the govt had made the approval of the schemes co-terminus with the Finance Commission cycle.
NITI+Aayog
In line with government’s commitment to evaluate all centrally-sponsored schemes before fresh appraisals, the Development Monitoring and Evaluation Office (DMEO) under NITI Aayog has invited proposals for consultants to evaluate 28 umbrella centrally sponsored schemes under 10 sectors. The exercise is expected to be completed before the start of 20th Finance Commission post March 2020. 
In order to rationalise the available resources based on the recommendations of the Finance Commission for the achievement of the National Development Agenda, the government had made the approval of the schemes co-terminus with the Finance Commission cycle. 
“Since the 14th Finance Commission cycle will end in March 2020 and the 15th Finance Commission will begin after that, government has assigned DMEO, NITI Aayog the responsibility to conduct independent third-party evaluation of all the CSS in a time-bound manner so that the findings of the evaluation are made available for determining the rationalisation of the schemes.
The 10 sectors under which evaluation will be done include agriculture, women and child development, human resource development, urban transformation, rural development, drinking water and sanitation, health, jobs and skills, water resources, environment and forest and social inclusion, law and order and justice delivery. 
As per DMEO there will be two-stage selection process for evaluating the proposals comprising technical and financial bids. In the first stage technical evaluation will be done and the short-listed applicants will qualify for the second stage of financial evaluation. 
After the number of CSS had proliferated to close to 100, the government had in 2016 rationalised the CSS under the 28 umbrella CSS to achieve the overarching National Development Agenda following the recommendations of the sub-group of chief ministers.
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