Highlights of the 10th Five-Year Plan

Following are the highlights of the 10th Five-Year Plan approved by the National Development Council in New Delhi on Saturday:

• 8 per cent average gross domestic product growth for the period 2002-07.
• Creation of 50 million employment opportunities in the next 5 years.
• Reduction of poverty ratio by 5 percentage points by 2007 and by 15 percentage points by 2012.
• Emphasis to be placed on completion of partially completed or on-going projects, and upgradation of existing capital assets before starting new projects.
• Rapid privatisation of public sector undertakings, particularly those working well below capacity.
• Continue the policy of PSU disinvestments to enable the realization of Rs 16,000 crore (Rs 160 billion) per annum to finance the Plan.
• Progressive reduction in fertiliser subsidy as well as elimination of petroleum subsidy.
• Food subsidy be better targeted through targeted public distribution system and specific programmes for the poor like food-for-work programme.
• Curtailment of pay and allowance bill of the government.
• All children in school by 2003; all children to complete 5 years of schooling by 2007.
• Reduction in gender gaps in literacy and wage rates by at least 50 per cent by 2007.
• Reduction in the decadal rate of population growth between 2001 and 2011 to 16.2 per cent.
• Increase in literacy rates to 75 per cent within the Plan period.
• Increase in forest and tree cover to 25 per cent by 2007 and 33 per cent by 2012.
• Encouraging foreign direct investment so as to achieve the annual target of $7.5 billion.
• Exemptions under corporate tax to be progressively eliminated.
• Single excise rate.
• Expansion of service tax net.
• All villages to have sustained access to potable drinking water within the Plan period.
• Legal and procedural changes for facilitating quick transfer of assets, including such measures as repeal of Sick Industrial Companies (special provision) Act (Sica), introduction of bankruptcy law, facilitating foreclosure and accelerating judicial processes.
• Lower tariffs on imports to remove anti-export bias.
• Rationalisation of domestic tax structure, and the consequent simplification of the export promotion regime.
• Evolve a positive agenda for future negotiations at the World Trade Organisation.
• Improving tax/GDP ratio of the Centre and states through inclusion of services in tax base, removal of tax exemptions and concessions, harmonisation of tax rates, tightening of tax administration, and adopting an integrated valued-added tax (VAT) regime.
• Reduction of budget-based subsidies by raising user charges of departmental services, reducing expenditure by cutting administrative and establishment costs and privatisation and through the Centre's initiative switching over to ad valorem rates of royalty on minerals
• Reducing staff strength through adoption of policy of net attrition and constituting a pension and amortisation fund to make committed payments like terminal benefits and debt servicing.
• Enacting a ‘fiscal responsibility and budget management' Bill under which borrowings shall be restricted to attain a non-rising debt to GDP ratio from current levels in order to reduce the burden of interest payments.
• Improving internal resources of states' PSUs by implementing power sector reforms and reducing the burden of contingent liabilities on state budgets through a legislative or administrative ceiling on the issue of state guarantees.
• Simplifying laws and procedures for investment.
• Eliminating inter-state barriers to trade and commerce.
• Reforming development financial institutions for long-term financing of small and medium enterprises.
• Removal of government and Reserve Bank of India restrictions on financing of stocking and trading.
• Calibration of the cost of borrowed funds for enhancing competitiveness.
• Essential Commodities Act to be repealed and replaced by an Emergency Act.
• Alignment of customs tariffs with average Asian rates.
• Exemptions and concessions that distort tariff structure to be eliminated.
• Improvement of the operational efficiency of railways and power sector units.
• User charges to be raised to cost-recover levels.
• Project-based assistance needs to be encouraged.
• Rationalisation of centrally sponsored schemes and central sector schemes using zero-based budgeting.
• Railway tariff regulatory authority needed to oversee the pricing of passenger and freight traffic services.
• Opening of civil aviation sector and setting up a regulatory framework for the sector.
• Adoption of integrated approach to improvement in agriculture sector by utilising waste and degraded lands.