Policies that come in the way of higher growth rate need to be restructured, the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, said on Thursday.

He was speaking at the meeting of the full Planning Commission called to finalise the approach paper to the Twelfth Plan.

The next Plan targets a growth of 9-9.5 per cent with focus on health, education, rural infrastructure and watershed management.

“The Plan objective must be faster, more inclusive and also sustainable growth...We need to identify the critical areas where existing policies and programmes are not delivering results. These should be strengthened or even restructured,” Dr Singh said.

The Prime Minister said he had taken note of the Finance Minister's suggestions to improve the legal system's functioning and methods of dispute resolution.

Dr Singh also asked the Plan panel and the Finance Ministry to arrive at an agreed position on resource availability for the Twelfth Plan.

“We do know that resources will be a constraint. This underlines the need to focus more on efficiency of resource use, and supplement public resources with private investment, wherever feasible…. Sustainability, low carbon and fiscal issues should also be kept in mind,” he said.

The paper noted that some key challenges that the economy faces include accelerated inflation, global pressure on food and oil prices, quality of governance and weak manufacturing performance, which can be given a boost by liberalising the policy on the foreign direct investment.

The Plan panel presentation to the Prime Minister also cautioned that rising debt in advanced economies could lead to higher interest rates.

The paper admitted that citizen feedback revealed general unhappiness with governance and public service delivery. “They believe that corruption is built into systems for public service delivery,” it said.

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