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The State Government would make an all-out effort to gain maximum access to funds available on tap under various schemes of the Centre. This was stated by the Chief Minister, Mr Oommen Chandy, while speaking to newspersons here on Thursday after a meeting of the State Planning Board.
ANNUAL PLAN
The Project Finance Cell of the Planning Board has been assigned the task of monitoring the flow of funds and the pattern of spending.
This comes in the light of the realisation that the State had failed to make good use of the benefits available under these schemes during the current financial year.
The meeting of the Planning Board also approved an annual Plan of Rs 14,010 crore for the State for 2012-13, subject to the approval of the Planning Commission.
The Chief Minister took exception to the fact that the Plan achievement of so far during the current financial year has failed to inspire confidence.
In the light of this, it has been decided that the Vice-Chairman of the Planning Board and the Chief Secretary convene a meeting of heads of departments on Monday to evaluate the performance of all departments.
Decisions at this meeting would be escalated to the Council of Ministers, which would decide on residual steps to be taken to get the Government machinery crank up better speed and streamline spending.
According to Mr K. M. Chandrasekhar, Vice-Chairman, State Planning Board, who was also present on the occasion, the Plan achievement added up to no more than 40 per cent as on date.
Answering a specific question, he said that the local self-government bodies could spend only 24 per cent of their allocation so far.
While there was nothing unusual for a bulk of the Plan works to get bunched up towards the end of the financial year, the Chief Minister said that the State Government would like to break away from the pattern and set a healthy precedent.
He also recalled that the elections and the change in Government had put a spanner in the Plan works for as long as the first five months of the current financial year.
Meanwhile, the meeting of the Planning Board also approved the draft Approach Paper for the 12th Five Year Plan prepared much ahead of Thursday's meeting.
Some changes had been incorporated in the draft following the meeting with various stakeholders and the approved Approach Paper would be published in a couple of days, Mr Chandrasekhar said.
The Approach Paper had targeted an outlay of Rs 1.05 lakh crore, which represents an increase of 27.02 per cent over the revised estimates of the 11th Plan outlay.
According to the Chief Minister, special focus would be given to agriculture, dairy development, education, and health/medical care in the 12th Plan.
These would be higher respectively by 100 per cent, 71 per cent, 42 per cent and 77 per cent than those the previous Plan, he added.
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