Montek's efforts to get Mayawati to finalise Annual Plan

By Staff
|
Google Oneindia News

New Delhi, June 20 (UNI) Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia is in a quandary on how to complete the process of finalisation of the plan size of the States in the absence of any response from the newly-elected government of Uttar Pradesh.

The process has already been delayed by almost three months due to Dr Ahluwalia's decision to hold back discussions with States which were due for fresh elections. His belief has been that meetings with these States, including Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Goa-- would be completed immediately after the new governments are formed.

But to his dismay, the Commission has failed to solicit any response from Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati inspite of personally communicating to her about the urgency of finalising the plan size for the State.

The first to respond after the elections was Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, who lost no time after getting elected to come down to Delhi to finalise the Annual Plan for his State for 2007-08.

Uttarakhand Chief Minister B C Khanduri has given his consent to meet Dr Ahluwalia and his team to finalise the Annual Plan for his State on June 22, 2007.

The problem for the Commission has become even more acute as the current year is also the first year of the Eleventh Plan. The Plan discussions need to estimate the resource requirements of the State, which is an essential ingradient for finalising the size of the Eleventh Plan.

The Commission has omitted spelling out the outlay for the Eleventh Plan at the time of finalising the Approach Paper, fully aware of the delay that it can result in the eventuality of the States not working out resource and development plans.

The Eleventh Plan document, which has already been delayed by six months, is facing further loss of time if the strong women of the Hindi heartland continues to ignore Dr Ahluwalia's request for early finalisation of the Plan size.

The Planning Commission has the option of unilaterally fixing the Plan size for the State, but Dr Ahluwalia is reluctant to take this step in view of the political import of the Mayawati government.

Frequent efforts by the Commission to fix a convenient date for Ms Mayawati have failed to yield results. Dr Ahluwalia then took the step of personally writing a letter to the UP Chief Minister in this regard.

The Eleventh Plan size was to have been finalsied by March 31, 2007.

UNI

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