XIth plan focus on poverty eradication, growth, governance

New Delhi, Dec 17 (UNI) Riding on a nearly nine per cent growth rate for the last three years, the Planning Commission has prepared the Eleventh Plan document which gives unprecedented focus on making the growth process inclusive.

Bringing about a complete change in sectoral allocations, the Commission in its plan document(2002-07) has proposed nearly 74 per cent allocations for agriculture, rural development, education, health, social justice, physical infrastructure, scientific departments and energy.

The Plan document is slated for approval by the 54th meeting of the National Development Counil on December 19. To be chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the meeting will be attended by some key Cabinet Ministers and Chief Ministers of various States and Members of the Commission. The sole agenda before the NDC is giving its approval to the Plan document, which has been cleared by the Full Planning Commission and Cabinet.

The restructuring of allocations and much greater emphasis on sectors which can address the problem of regional imbalances clearly reveals that the Eleventh Plan will focus government funding on programmes which can improve incomes in rural India and accelerate the pace of poverty eradication.

The Cabinet Ministers who will participate in the proceedings include External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar and Railway Minister Lalu Prasad.

The proceedings of the event are to be conducted by Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia.

Education alone will have a 500 per cent increase in the Plan allocation as compared to the Xth Plan figure.

Substantial increase has also been proposed for rural health and the Rural Health Mission with a view to bridge the widening urban- rural gap in this sector.

The Plan also addresses the problem of employment generation, with focussed attention on tackling the problem of unemployent among educated youth. It has set a target of creating 70 million additional jobs during the Plan period. It avows to bring down unemployment among educated youth to less than five per cent and concentrate on creating quality employment.

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