There are 28 Centrally Sponsored Schemes running across the country. All 28 Centrally Sponsored Schemes have sunset dates except Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme of the Ministry of Rural Development, which is under Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act. In para-110 of the Budget Speech of 2016 it was stated that every scheme should have a sunset date and an outcome review. In the past, every scheme used to be revisited at the end of each plan period for their continuation to the next Five Year Plan. It has been decided that after the Twelfth Five Year Plan, the medium term framework for schemes and their sunset dates will become co-terminus with the Finance Commission Cycles, the first such one being remaining Fourteenth Finance Commission (FFC) period ending March, 2020. Accordingly, it has been instructed vide the Department of Expenditure O.M. dated 5th August 2016 that at the end of the Twelfth Plan period all Ministries/ Departments would undertake an outcome review and re-submit their Schemes for appraisal and approval, unless the scheme has already been made coterminous with the FFC period. The same process will, mutatis mutandis, apply to the subsequent Finance Commission Cycles.

This was stated by Shri Arjun Ram Meghwal, Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs in written reply to a question in Lok Sabha.

Sunset dates for centrally sponsored schemes aligned with Finance Commission cycles; ministries must undertake outcome reviews and resubmit schemes. All centrally sponsored schemes must have a sunset date and undergo an outcome review; sunset dates and medium term frameworks are to be aligned with Finance Commission Cycles. By Department of Expenditure memorandum, at the end of the Twelfth Plan Ministries must undertake outcome reviews and re submit schemes for appraisal and approval unless already coterminous with the Finance Commission Cycle. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme is excluded as it is statutorily governed, and the alignment process applies mutatis mutandis to subsequent Finance Commission Cycles.