The Hindu Business Line : `Inclusive development is a national goal'

The National Development Council (NDC) on Wednesday gave its unanimous endorsement to the Eleventh Plan (2007-12) setting an accelerated economic growth of nine per cent per annum for the five-year period, with the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, asserting that inclusive economic development is "a national goal".

In his concluding remarks at the 54th NDC meeting with State Chief Ministers here, the Prime Minister refuted the allegation that the "untied" resources for States were shrinking with a corresponding increase in centrally sponsored schemes and `tied' assistance.

He said the new approach helps to promote decentralised planning and monitoring while simultaneously increasing the resources available to specific sectors that are critical for enabling inclusive growth.

With irrigation becoming a priority sector for almost all States, the Prime Minister announced a task force in the Plan panel to comprehensively scan the resource requirements for expanding irrigation and identifying a new approach to implementing irrigation projects. He said the task force would identify innovative ways of raising resources, designing projects and implementing them so that the irrigation potential could be rapidly achieved.

Farmer debt

He also announced that the Finance Minister, in consultation with the Agriculture Minister, would finalise a scheme for addressing the issue of the debt burden of farmers on the basis of the the Radhakrishna Committee report. While stressing the need to minimise the diversion of agricultural land for industrial and other purposes, he said using wasteland for non-agricultural purposes could be an option.

The Finance Minister would constitute an Expert Group to go into the system of statutory clearances for industrial and infrastructure projects to \obviate the delays to major projects as a result of `cumbersome clearance procedures. Dr Singh also announced a task force in the Planning Commission to specifically look into problems of hill States and hill areas to suggest measures to ensure that they do not suffer because of their peculiarities.

Dr Singh firmly said the Eleventh 11th Plan is for the poor and it does not attempt to divide people on the basis of caste, creed or gender even as it pays special attention to the needs of these marginalised groups and targets them in a precise way. Later, addressing a news conference, the Planning Commission Deputy Chairman, Mr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, denied that there is any sub-plan for minorities but said "we cannot achieve inclusive growth and the social harmony it will bring, if the minorities remain excluded".

PPP initiative

On States' concern that public-private partnership in infrastructure would run into difficulties, the Prime Minister made it clear that PPP was only a supplement to public investment and wherever this approach faced difficulties, "we will not hesitate to invest directly". He also told the States that he has directed the Power Ministry to accelerate the sanctioning process of funds under the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyuteekaran (rural electrification) Yojana.

Earlier, in his opening remarks, the Prime Minister , Dr Manmohan Singh highlighted the "strategic shift" on public investment focussing more on building up social capital and on equity issues, while private investment would play a larger role in funding infrastructure and power.

He also touched on the `peculiar puzzle' that while growth rate was accelerating to more than 9 per cent, the share of agriculture in GDP has dropped below 20 per cent without any shift in the proportion of population still dependent on agriculture for sustenance.

Food security

The Prime Minister also highlighted the impending problem of food security and said "we need to ensure that the agriculture sector not only performs but also that our food planning adjusts to the emerging market realities".

Dr Singh said that "we need to revisit our foodgrain procurement strategies in the short-term". He said that India needs to enhance its buffer stocks of foodgrains and also consider buffer stocks for pulses and edible oils.

"We also need to ensure that subsidised foodgrains are targeted at only the needy and the poor and that leakages and misdirected subsidies are stopped," he cautioned.

Dr Singh urged the States to work with the Centre to ensure better targeting of subsidies to the genuinely needy and to cut down losses in the power sector and said the aggregate technical and commercial losses (AT&C) should be brought down to 15 per cent in two years.