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National Development Council to meet on Sept 1

The National Development Council, headed by the prime minister, will hold its 49th meeting on Saturday to consider the draft approach paper to the Tenth Five-Year Plan (2002-07).

The meeting, which will be addressed by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman K C Pant, Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha and chief ministers of various states, also has on its agenda the mid term appraisal of the Ninth Five-Year Plan, grant of special category status to Uttaranchal, and the NDC sub-committee's status report on transfer of centrally sponsored schemes.

It is also expected to consider the report of the NDC sub-committee on the criterion for allocation of funds under major rural poverty alleviation programmes.

The approach paper to the Tenth Plan, to be launched on April 1 2002, is based on the directions of the prime minister to examine the feasibility of doubling the per capita income of the country within ten years.

Accordingly, the draft aims at stepping up the growth rate of gross domestic product to 8 per cent a year over the Plan period.

It also proposes to establish specific monitorable targets covering economic, social and environmental dimensions of human development.

The NDC committee on the criterion for allocation of funds under poverty alleviation programmes has agreed on continuation of the presently used criterion -- 15 per cent adjusted shares as approved by the full Planning Commission.

This allocation criterion is based on an adjustment formula to contain the losses under the expert group estimates to not more than 15 per cent of their expected entitlement based on the task force methodology 1993-94.

According to the agenda paper for the Saturday's meeting, several exercises have been carried out in the planning commission in consultation with the concerned central ministries and departments not only to identify the CSS that could be transferred to states but also to locate those CSS that could be weeded out and converged or merged.

Subsequently, it was agreed that there was a need to merge schemes with similar objectives and discontinue schemes which had lost their relevance.

However, the state governments opined that more work needed to be done with regard to transfer or weeding out of CSS.

As per the policy announcement of zero-based budgeting made in the Budget speech of 2001-02 of the finance minister, the central ministries and departments are reviewing the schemes within their purview for transfer, convergence or weeding out.

This exercise would be completed before the commencement of the Tenth Plan.

On Uttaranchal, the NDC agenda paper states that the newly created state generally conforms to the characteristics of special category states.

''The NDC may, therefore, consider placing Uttaranchal on the list of special category states.''

The issue was considered by the full Planning Commission in its meeting held on June 27 and 29 and it was agreed to place it before the NDC. The Union cabinet has already approved the proposal.

Special category states get 90 per cent of central assistance as grant and 10 per cent as loan, while for other states only 30 per cent is grant and the remaining 70 per cent loan.

The mid-term appraisal of the Ninth Five-Year Plan was carried out by the Planning Commission during the year 2000 and the document was considered by the full Planning Commission in its meeting on September 30 last year.

UNI

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