While delivering his Interim Budget Speech the Union Finance Minister Shri P. Chidambaram said that Centrally Sponsored Schemes were restructured into 66 programmes and central assistance to plans of States and Union Territories will rise substantially from Rs. 136,254 crore in BE 2013-14 to Rs. 338,562 crore in 2014-15.

The Finance Minister Shri P. Chidambaram informed the House that the Public Sector Enterprises will achieve a new record in capital expenditure of Rs. 257,641 crore in 2013-14.

Presenting the Report Card for 2013-14, the Finance Minister Shri P. Chidambaram informed about various other economic initiatives taken by the Government during the current financial year are:

• About 50,000 MW of Thermal and Hydelpower capacity is under construction and 78,000 MW of power capacity has been assured coal supply.
• The FDI policy was liberlised.
• Approval was granted to establish two semi-conductor wafer fab units.
• IT modernization of the Department of Posts with an outlay of Rs. 4,909 crore.
• Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant Unit I achieved criticality and is generating 180 million units of power.
• 500 MW prototype fast breeder reactor at Kalpakam is nearing completion.
• National Solar Mission exceed the target and achieved 1,684 MW of grid connected solar power.
• Initial contribution of Rs. 100 crore to the corpus of ‘India Inclusive Innovation Fund’ under Ministry of MSME.

Restructuring of centrally sponsored schemes increases central assistance to states under the interim budget, expanding fiscal support and capital outlays. Restructuring of centrally sponsored schemes into fewer programmes accompanies a substantial planned increase in central assistance to state and union territory plans, reallocating federal transfers to support subnational plans and public investment priorities. The communication also highlights a record rise in public sector enterprise capital expenditure and targeted sectoral initiatives in power generation, FDI liberalisation, semiconductor capacity, IT modernisation of the postal department, and an initial corpus contribution to an inclusive innovation fund.