Ahead of the National Development Council meet on Saturday to clear the approach to the XIth Plan, the centre, as part of its process to weed out programmes, is planning to set up a corpus of Rs 5,000 crore which would be used to provide incentive to states to meet targets for some of the centrally sponsored schemes that the Centre now wants to pass on to the states.

Out of the current 155 centrally sponsored schemes, 52 schemes would be retained by the Centre, while the balance 103 with an allocation of less than Rs 300 crore each would be discontinued but with the caveat that 25 such schemes that need an allocation of between Rs 100 to Rs 300 crore would be transferred on to state governments.

While this means curtains to 78 existing central schemes such as "biosphere reserves" under the environment ministry or for that matter the "model driver training school" under the road transport ministry, some of the 25 schemes that can be taken on by the states through this incentive-based mechanism are "command area development and water management programme" which is currently under the water resources department at the centre or for that matter the "mega city" plan which is currently under the urban development ministry.

States which meet the monitorable targets under this new dispensation can draw from the Rs 5000 crore corpus that is expected to be part of the next budget.

The concept of introducing monitorable targets for states was suggested by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself at the meet of the full Planning Commission held in October this year.

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