The Hindu Business Line : Plan panel talks with States to end by July

The Planning Commission is hopeful of winding up the regional discussion on the Approach to the Eleventh Plan before the end of this month so as to go ahead with crafting the various inputs into broad contours of the objectives of the Eleventh Plan to the full meeting of the Plan panel immediately.

Disclosing this to Business Line here on the eve of the two-day Northern region consultations that begin on Monday, the Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Mr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, said that the rationale is simply to have a meaningful approach paper presented to the National Development Council and the Planning Commission but before that, "we have to consult the states to get their perspective". This is because in the new economic environment, the role of the states has increased greatly. A lot of liberalisation has taken place in the states. The Centre has eliminated industrial licensing but to create a climate conducive to investment activity, the states have to do a lot, he said.

In infrastructure, he said, most of the decisions rest in the hands of the state governments. Currently, the new focus of the government intervention on the social sector like education, health and agriculture and the implementation rests with the state government. Hence, "it makes sense for us to share these concerns with the State governments and get a sense from them about how they perceive the approach to be adopted," Mr Ahluwalia said.

He further noted, "Unless the states are willing to take the necessary corrective steps, we cannot expect a significant improvement either in growth rates in terms of its overall level or in terms of its inclusiveness, both of which are quite important."

Referring to the recent consultations held in Mumbai for the Western region, Mr Ahluwalia said, "It was a very good meeting. Those state governments seem to be very anxious to push for a higher growth rate than we have indicated. I am not so certain that the ability to take the policy decisions that could bring about that growth rate is necessarily there." But in many of the things we talked about, the importance of public private partnership (PPP) was recognised by all the States as infrastructure development is to be done through PPP, he said.

Asked about the controversy that reforms have not resulted in poverty reduction substantially, Mr Ahluwalia said that the original target for reduction in poverty was based on achieving a growth rate of 8 per cent, which has not been achieved. Part of the reason why poverty has not gone down in addition to the slower growth is the structural growth has not been of the kind that would ensure the wider spread of benefits. Slow growth of agriculture was a major weakness of last several years and the 11th Plan identified that as a target and "we have to double the agricultural growth rate to 4 per cent." He also rebutted the charge that much of the growth was jobless, stating that data on this is a little mixed because of measurement of employment is not very accurate.