Perhaps to bring in more accountability among departments and authorities so far exempted from preparing the Outcome Budget, the finance ministry on Thursday issued revised guidelines making it mandatory for them to conduct this exercise for internal use from this year. It, however, left it to their discretion to place it in public domain fully or partially.

Since 2005, the government has made preparation of Outcome Budget an integral part of the budgeting process. The Outcome Budget for 2010-11 will broadly indicate the physical dimensions of the financial budgets as also the actual physical performance in 2008-09, performance of the first nine months of this fiscal and the targeted performance during 2010-11.

The finance ministry has also made it compulsory for all ministries implementing flagship schemes to get their Outcome Budget vetted by the department of expenditure as well as the Planning Commission from this year before they are finalised. The Outcome Budget for 2010-11 is to be placed before Parliament by March 20, 2010.

The revised guidelines asked the ministries to prepare an executive summary in its report, prominently highlighting the details of the monitoring mechanism and the public information system put in place by each of them.