Himachal Pradesh envisions Rs 2,100 crore Annual Plan for 2007-08

Shimla, Jan 2 (UNI) The Himachal Pradesh Government has envisioned Rs 2,100 crore Annual Plan of the state for the financial year 2007-08.

It also proposes to spend Rs 14,000 crore during the Eleventh Five-Year Plan beginning from 2007.

This was revealed by Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh while addressing an inaugural session of the State Planning meeting here today. The meeting was convened to discuss the priorities of MPs and MLAs from the districts of Shimla, Solan, Mandi, Chamba, Bilaspur and Sirmaur.

He said that the inter-sector priorities would be finalised based upon the discussions and consultations with the representatives.

The Chief Minister said that the state was making rapid strides on all fronts and new milestones were being added by carrying out balanced and uniform development. He said that record funds were being procured from different sources to carry out development at an accelerated pace and to complete the projects in a time-bound manner.

Mr Singh said that at the Annual Plan meetings during the current financial year, the state government would pose all priority schemes of MLAs for the past three years for NABARD funding.

He said that up to December 2006 the State Government had posed to NABARD 1,250 projects totaling Rs 1,136 crore for funding under the RIDF programme. He said that 716 projects worth Rs 506 crore had been sanctioned. ''Efforts were afoot to get the remaining projects also sanctioned under NABARD programmes.'' The Chief Minister said that state government had decided to continue with the past practice to include three on-going and three new schemes each in roads, minor irrigation and water supply schemes as prioritised by the MLAs.

He appealed to the members to focus on completion of schemes under execution rather than on new schemes alone. He said that there was no shortage of funds for developmental programmes.

UNI