The West Bengal Chief Minister, Ms Mamata Banerjee, has got a higher Plan outlay for her State at Rs 25,910 crore for 2012-13 against Rs 22,000 crore last year.

The Plan size was finalised here on Tuesday at a meeting between the Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, Mr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, and Ms Banerjee.

Mr Ahluwalia appreciated the efforts of Ms Banerjee's Government to improve the Plan utilisation with focus on inclusive growth.

However, he said more focused attention was needed to improve social infrastructure. He drew attention to regional disparities in West Bengal, pointing out that a significant part of the State was relatively more backward economically, and also less advanced in term of human development.

Mr Ahluwalia said health and education would continue to have focus during the 12{+t}{+h} Plan and stressed on the need to explore public-private partnerships in the social sector.

Briefing the Commission, Ms Banerjee said despite financial constraints, the State had grown at a rate of 11.76 per cent. She said improving agriculture would be a major priority and the State Government would aim at achieving 4 per cent growth through enhanced irrigation and flood control capacity.

The growth rate of agriculture and allied sector in Bengal has showed an upward trend ranging between 2 per cent to 6 per cent, except 2008-09 where it was negative i.e. -2.21 per cent. The growth rate in industry was uneven. Even the growth in service sector has not shown any dramatic change over the period of time and it stagnated at 9-10 per cent.

Efforts are also on to rebuild the industrial sector with focus on skill and infrastructure development, she added.

Ms Banerjee said the private sector was being encouraged to join in the effort to develop social and infrastructure sectors through PPPs.

On rural development target, Ms Banerjee said the target was to reduce poverty to 25-28 per cent from 43 per cent at present.

> aditi.n@thehindu.co.in

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