Hundreds of people could lose their jobs, if the Finance Ministry has its way in scrapping 120 central sector schemes in the coming 11th Five Year Plan.

"The Finance Ministry does not want to continue 120 centrally sponsored schemes worth Rs 2,179.83 crore, currently operational in the 10th Plan and disallow their spill over into the 11th Plan," highly placed government sources said.

In order to prevent spillover of these schemes into the 11th Plan, the Finance Ministry has proposed a budgetary allocation of Rs 50 crore for the Department of Expenditure, which would be used in relocation of manpower and meeting the establishment expenditure, till the schemes are wound up, sources said.

The move is aimed at ensuring that no funds are made available for schemes scheduled to close down at the end of the 10th Plan, sources said.
 
"The Finance Minister has already instructed the ministries concerned that the surplus manpower should either be absorbed elsewhere or adjusted as per the existing guidelines," they said.

According to the existing guidelines on relocation of manpower, the employees who would be rendered surplus following closure of the schemes would be put in the surplus cell of the government for a year and the ministries would be asked to accord preference to them while ascertaining their manpower needs.

"Even after a year if they remained unemployed, then they could be forcibly retired," sources said.