Planning Commission starts work on 12th Plan; aims 10% GDP growth

The Planning Commission today kicked off the exercise to formulate the 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-17) with an aim to accelerate the economic growth to 10%, up from 8.1% expected in the current plan.

"This meeting was for consultation with experts for the 'Approach' for the Twelfth Plan. We discussed broad issues with experts today," Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia told reporters after the first meeting for preparing 'Approach' document for the 12th Plan.

Besides the members of the Commission, the meeting was attended by various experts, including UIDAI chairman Nandan
Nilekani, former Nasscom president Kiran Karnik, former
Thermax chairperson Anu Aga, former cabinet secretary Naresh
Chandra and CPR senior fellow Sanjoy Hazarika.

On economic growth target for the 12th Plan, Ahluwalia said, "Prime Minister has asked us that we should aim for 10% growth in next Plan. Everybody feels and we also think that the growth should be inclusive." 

The average annual growth target for the 11th Plan was scaled down to 8.1 per cent from 9 per cent on account of the impact of the global financial meltdown on the Indian economy. The growth rate during 2008-09 slipped to 6.7% from over 9% in the preceding three years.

The economy grew by 7.4% during 2009-10 and is expected to go up to 8.5% in the current fiscal. 

Ahluwalia said, "Not only inclusive, the growth should be sustainable. That means without environmental damage. There
are governance and implementation issues also."

"A large number of people think that we are spending money but that is not reaching the beneficiary. So discussions today centered around the steps required to improve the delivery system in next Plan period," he added.     

Earlier on Thursday, Ahluwalia had indicated that agriculture growth target of 4% could be retained in the next Plan.

"The 4% agriculture growth is a good target for the 12th Plan (2012-17), which could not be achieved so far, as envisaged in the 11th Plan (2007-12)," he had said.