It has suggested creation of 50 million jobs in the non-farm sector and 10 million additional sitting capacity in higher education to push the gross enrollment ratio (GER) from 18.3% to 25%.
The Plan draft has endorsed Prime Minister’s suggestion of creating 500 million skilled workforce by 2020.
For agriculture and allied sector growth the target has been fixed at 4%.
The 12th Plan draft document has set as many as 30 targets which would be monitored as regards different schemes. The focus of the Plan is on health, nutrition, water and sanitation.
According to the draft 12th Plan document in the medium-term fiscal deficit of the Union Government should be brought down to 3% of the GDP. The gross budgetary support during the entire 12th Plan period has been estimated at Rs.35.68 lakh crore which works out to 5.23% of GDP over the 5 year period.
The tax-GDP ratio should be raised by 2% to the level of that in 2007-08. The subsidies should to reduced from 2.5% of the GDP to one or 1.5% of the GDP. The current account deficit (CAD) should be contained at the level of 2.9% of the GDP. CAD should be financed by FDI and FII inflows.
Chairing the full bench of the Planning Commission here on Saturday, the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh said ; “As the Plan document points out, our objective is not just growth of GDP, but growth that is inclusive and also sustainable’
Dwelling on the constraints in the infrastructure sector, Dr Singh said : “This is crucial for removing supply bottlenecks which constrain growth in other sectors. It will also boost investor sentiment to raise the overall rate of investment. The infrastructure ministries must set ambitious targets for their sectors over the Twelfth Plan. We need close to a trillion dollars of investment in infrastructure and we have to work hard to achieve this.”
He suggested Investment Tracking System for monitoring of large PSU investments, the process to speed up security and other clearances as part of the effort at de-bottlenecking.” Many problems require that we work in closer cooperation with state governments to achieve our common goals,” he said.
“I will personally review the performance of the infrastructure Ministries compared with targets at the end of the first six months. I hope that out of this review we can define an agenda for improved implementation,” he said and directed the revised version of the draft 12th Plan document be put up for Cabinet approval.
Speaking on the occasion the Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram said : “the gross budgetary support during the entire 12th Plan period has been estimated at Rs.35.68 lakh crore which works out to 5.23% of GDP over the 5 year period. The GBS realized over the 11th Plan period was only 4.69% of GDP. The assumptions of tax to GDP ratio seem to be highly optimistic. The Internal and Extra Budgetary Resources (IEBR) of the CPSUs has been estimated at Rs.20.59 lakh crore making the total resources available for the Central Plan at Rs.47.70 lakh crore. Higher IEBR would be required to meet the shortfall, if any, in the GBS.”
He suggested that direct cash transfer of subsidies in food, fertilizers and petroleum will help in reduction of subsidies. Pilot projects are already under implementation for LPG and kerosene and it is Government’s intention to extend the direct transfer mechanism to the Union Territories in the first phase.
“Analysis shows that out of the 147 Centrally Sponsored Schemes currently in operation, 100 schemes are with an outlay of less than Rs 300 crore each for the whole country. Given the cost of administering the schemes and the capacity now available within the States, these deserve to be closed at the level of the Central Government. The allocated funds of Rs.7229 crore in the 2011-12 Budget could be added to the annual Normal Central Assistance of the respective States to enable them to implement these schemes,” Chidambaram said.
He suggested setting up of a National Investment Board to be chaired by the Prime Minister and the Allocation of Business Rules should be amended to create such a mechanism for faster approval of investments. The National Investment Board’s authority should extend to proposals/projects where the investment is above a certain threshold, say, Rs.1,000 crore. Once the final decision is taken by the National Investment Board, no other Ministry or Department or Authority should be able to interfere with that decision or delay its implementation.
Several members of the Planning Commission suggested that the beneficiaries under the Government’s schemes should be trough Aadhaar (UID) platform to prevent leakages. Flexi-fund in Central Plan Schemes should be introduced to give more flexibility to the States to formulate and implement schemes according to their specific needs.