India can achieve 9 percent growth: plan panel
Wednesday, 08 November 2006, 20:30 IST
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New Delhi: India can achieve a nine percent economic growth if the farm sector output is propped up and infrastructure spruced up even as the power scenario remains worrisome, said, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia. "The present infrastructure cannot lead to the kind of growth we want to achieve in coming years. An additional $110 billion need to be arranged and that can come through public-private partnership," Ahluwalia told the Economic Editors Conference here. "For doubling up the agriculture growth and to bring it up to the level of four percent, planning has to be localised. There is a huge scope for increasing productivity of dry land rain-fed areas," he added. "We are in the process of preparing an operational plan. We are also planning to pool in resources allocated under various government schemes to unleash a series of programmes that could increase farm productivity," Ahluwalia said. He indicated that in 11th Five-Year Plan (2007-12) the government would be looking for additional investments to strengthen infrastructure apart from filling the gaps wherever required. He emphasised the importance of public-private partnership in arranging resources for making additional investments of more than $300 billion during the next plan period. "We would give high priority to education, health and other such sectors so that the growth we achieve is more balanced and all-inclusive," Ahluwalia said. Commenting on the current economic scene, he said: "the Indian economy is in a very good shape. It has never been in such a strong position as it is now." "At the end of the 10th Five-Year Plan, the economy is likely to achieve a growth rate of about 7.2 percent which would be the highest ever for any plan period," he added. While the growth target for the period was eight percent, Ahluwalia said: "The shortfall in target has been due to the slow growth of agriculture and manufacturing sector. Power is also an area of worry. There are significant shortfalls in terms of achieving targets."
Source: IANS
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