The Hindu Business Line : Final document of 11th Plan to be ready by year-end

New Delhi, Sept. 4 The final document spelling out strategies and thrusts of the Eleventh Plan (2007-12) would be ready by the end of this year even as some of the important components of them have been identified, discussed at length and incorporated in the Budget 2007, the Planning Commission Deputy Chairman, Mr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, said here on Tuesday.

Talking to Business Line here on the twice postponed full-meeting of the Plan panel to discuss the education sector for evolving a strategy to dovetail into the Plan, Mr Ahluwalia said that already a full meeting of the Plan panel o n agriculture took place and strategy identified. In infrastructure, “We know what we want to do and that have been discussed in several fora. We are now working on a full meeting on education which would take a comprehensive view — the entire pyramid — elementary, secondary, higher secondary, higher education, technical education , vocational training within the secondary sector and skill development outside the education sector.”

Focus on agriculture

He said in terms of focus of the 11th Plan, foremost was agriculture to ensure greater exclusivity especially for rural areas and so doubling of the growth rate of agriculture was very crucial. Second, as better infrastructure is what is enabling the Indian industry to compete, “We have to do much more in that area if we want to achieve 9 per cent growth.”

Besides, emphasis would be on education and health and in the former “we are planning a big increase in government resources into primary secondary and higher education and a major effort to improve health indicators including maternal mortality and child care,” Mr Ahluwalia added.

appreciating rupee

Asked about the appreciating rupee and its fallout on exporters, Mr Ahluwalia said that “rapid appreciation of rupee has put a strain on the exporting community. In a world of external shocks, it is not possible to insulate them from every shock, particularly if you had tried to fight against appreciation, there would have been other problems”. He said on the whole given the volatility in the international markets “we are managing the position reasonably well.”

Mr Ahluwalia said that many exporters have shown “inherent strength and capacity to raise productivity in spite of appreciation of the rupee. In the long-run, it is not the exchange rate that makes the difference but it is the inherent productivity of the industry. But the exchange rate has to avoid excessive volatility”.

To a question about using a small portion of the high foreign exchange reserves for infrastructure which he proposed a couple of years ago, Mr Ahluwalia said that, “I believe that the Finance Ministry and the RBI have come to some agreement on an experiment on that scale. They are working out the details and I hope that the mechanism to do so would become operational during the current year.”

On inflation, Mr Ahluwalia said that “right now, we are back within the comfort zone. However, for macro-economic management, we have to be watchful on the inflation front and there is no room for complacency.”