Reforming education must: PM

The Prime Minister also saw merit in the proposal of rural development minister CP Joshi on how to equip the panchayati raj institutions to run professionally, with minimal bureaucratic interference. The idea is to impart a non-governmental culture in the conduct of these institutions that have greater ability to interact with the people, identify the local development needs and devise compatible programmes.

Singh said the for mid-term appraisal of the 11th Plan brought out the resilience of the Indian economy and these strengths can help it to return to the 9% growth trajectory by 2011-12.

Commenting on inclusive growth, a concept enshrined in the 11th Plan document, he said in addition to the 9% growth target, ?our policies have helped not only the advanced states, they are also helping the poorer states to improve their performance as well.?

?A very positive feature of developments in recent years is that the growth performance across states shows definite narrowing of dispersion. Data are only available up to 2008-09, but they do show that previously poorer performing states are also accelerating,? he said in his opening remarks to the meeting of the full Planning Commission.

Singh expressed happiness over the fact that the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the largest centrally sponsored scheme in the system with an annual outlay of around Rs 40,000 crore, generated employment in 2009-10, about three times the level achieved from the wage employment programmes in operation earlier in the country. Stating that several centrally sponsored schemes have played a major role to push the inclusive growth agenda, Singh said, ?The Mid-Term Appraisal also brings out many deficiencies in the implementation of these schemes that need to be removed. Our focus must shift from making demands for more resources to expand schemes to undertaking a serious review of their effectiveness and improving the implementation on the ground.? The total expenditure on the centrally sponsored schemes has increased steadily during the Eleventh Plan and has reached Rs.1,61,784 crore in 2010-11.

Speaking about the poverty reduction targets, he said, the target of reducing poverty is to cut the percentage of the population below the poverty line by ten percentage points during the Plan period. This implies a pace of poverty reduction more than twice that experienced in the past. ?Our success in ensuring inclusive growth depends critically on how well we do in this dimension of performance.?

The official estimates of poverty are based on the large sample NSS survey which was last conducted in 2004-05. The next estimate will be for 2009-10, based on the NSS survey which is currently being conducted. Estimates from this survey will be available by 2011. The question whether the high growth rate experienced in the period after 2004-05 has helped to reduce poverty can be answered confidently only after that.

The 11th Plan has a target of increasing the investment in infrastructure from little under 6% in 2006-07 to 9% in 2011-12. The Mid Term Appraisal reports that total investment in infrastructure is likely do well because of a massive expansion beyond the original target in telecommunications, led by an investment boom in the private sector.

But, in all the other infrastructure areas investment will be short of the target. In power generation, the appraisal shows that private investment may exceed the target while the public sector may fall short of it. ?We must redouble our efforts to ensure that both the Centre and the states do well in the infrastructure sectors in the remaining period of the Plan.?