12th Plan aims at 8.2 per cent growth

The Full Planning Commission is all set to approve the 12th Plan document that seeks to raise the average annual economic growth during the five-year period ending March 2017 to 8.2 per cent from 7.9 per cent achieved in the previous Plan on Saturday.

The meeting, which has been called by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, will also vet various other social sector targets relating to poverty alleviation, infant mortality, enrolment ratio and job creation.

Besides other things, the 12th Plan seeks to achieve 4 per cent agriculture sector growth during the Plan period. The growth target for manufacturing sector has been pegged at 10 per cent.

The total plan size has been proposed at Rs 47.7 lakh crore, 135 per cent more that the investments realised in the 11th Plan (2007-12).

The meeting will be attended by regular Planning Commission members and key cabinet ministers.

Once the document is approved by the full Plan panel, it will be vetted by the Union Cabinet and then placed before the National Development Council (NDC), the apex decision making body, for final approval.

In view of the ongoing global problems, the average annual growth target for the 12th Plan has been scaled down at 8.2 per cent from 9 per cent envisaged in the Approach Paper to the 12th Plan.

As regards poverty alleviation, the Commission proposed to bring down the poverty ratio by 10

percentage points during the Plan period. At present the poverty is around 30 per cent of the population.

As per the document, states will be encouraged to set their own economic growth and social sector targets.

The Commission has also proposed generation of five crore new jobs during the five year period in the non-farm sectors.

With regard to education, the draft document said, efforts would be made to create 20 lakh additional seats in higher education and eliminate gender and social gaps in school enrollment.

The document proposes to achieve infant mortality rate to 25 and maternal mortality ratio to one per 1,000 live births by end of the Plan period.

It also seeks to increase investment in infrastructure sector to 9 per cent of the GDP by 2016-17.

The other monitorable targets include reduction of aggregate technical and commercial losses in power sector to 20 per cent and electrification of all village during the five year policy period.

The document proposes to create additional generation capacity of 30,000 MW in renewable energy segment during the 12th Plan period.

Efforts, it said, will also be made to provide banking services to 90 per cent of Indian household by the end of the 12th Plan period.

As regards exports of goods and services, the commission said, the target would be to increase them to 2 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

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