Country's apex policy making body National Development Council, NDC, on Thursday approved the strategy to achieve average growth rate of 8 per cent during the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17),generate 50 million new jobs and increase investments in infrastructure sector.
The document, was approved at the full meeting of the NDC chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. It has pegged the aggregate Plan resources at 37.16 lakh crore rupees during the five year period.
The day-long meeting of the Chief Ministers, which approved the 12th Plan Five Year Plan Document aimed at 8 per cent average annual growth, from 8.2 per cent in the draft,saw the Prime Minister issue a warning that failure to control subsidies would lead to cut in plan expenditure. Addressing the meeting,Dr.Singh also favoured a phased hike in the prices of petroleum products, coal and power as they are under priced. He pointed out that the Centre is shifting several beneficiaries oriented schemes to a direct transfer mode using the Aadhar platform to prevent leakages, corruption, delay and poor targeting.
In his address, Dr.Singh also referred to the recent gang rape of a 23-year old paramedic student in the capital and said the government would accord high priority to safety and security of women as there can be no meaningful development without the active participation of half the population Dr.Singh assured all Chief Ministers that Centre has taken note of the points raised by them, including those in the written speeches.
The document also cautions that in scenario of policy logjam, the GDP growth could slow down to 5-5.5 per cent. The document proposes to bring down poverty by 10 percentage points by the end of the 12th Plan and generate five crore new jobs in non-farm sector.
As regard the infrastructure sector, it says that efforts should be made to increase investment in this sector to 9 per cent of the GDP by the end of the Plan period.
The other targets include increasing green cover by one million hectare every year and adding 30,000 MW of renewable energy generation capacity in the Plan period. It also seeks to reduce emission intensity of the GDP in line with the target of 20-25 reduction by 2020 over 2005 levels. The strategy for the full Plan would aim at raising agriculture output to 4 per cent and manufacturing sector growth to 10 per cent.
It also wants all the states to set higher targets of growth than what was achieved in the 11th Five Year Plan. The apex policy-making body NDC, which comprises Cabinet Ministers and State Chief Ministers, was convened to approve the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17) which seeks to peg the average annual growth rate at 8 per cent, as against 8.2 per cent proposed earlier.
The Prime minister said,Rural real wages went up by 6.8 percent per year during 2007-2008 to 2011-2012 compared to an average of 1.7 percent in previous decade.
He further said,Rural area per capita consumption went up 3.4 per cent per year during 2004-2005 to 2011-2012 , which is four times higher than what it was during 1994-2005.
