Cabinet Okays Tenth Plan
The union Cabinet today approved the Tenth Five Year Plan targeting an 8 per cent economic growth annually for the period 2002-07.
An outlay of Rs 15,92,300 crore including gross budgetary support of Rs 706,000 crore has been earmarked for the period.
Briefing newspersons after the cabinet meeting, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, KC Pant, said the Central plan will have an outlay of Rs 9,21,291 crore and the outlay for the states and union territories will be Rs 6,71,009 crore.
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The three-volume document has proposed to carry forward key reforms, particularly in agriculture, to generate 50 million jobs in the next five years besides raising FDI flow to $ 7.5 billion annually, Pant said.
Asked whether 8 per cent annual target looked possible in view of RBI today lowering the growth target to upto 5.5 per cent and NCAER also pegging economic growth at 4.8 per cent in the current financial year, Pant said, "There is no relevance in comparing the two targets. One bad agriculture year can disturb the overall growth targets."
Pant, however, warned that lack of political consensus between Centre and states on pushing forward reforms would hit the country hard and also come in the way of achieving the ambitious 8 per cent economic growth target.
"There has to be a consensus among political parties, Centre and state governments on taking hard economic decisions. There could be some problems in this,