Rs.53,000 crore approved for Andhra Pradesh

The Planning Commission Thursday approved a plan size of Rs.53,000 crore for Andhra Pradesh for the year 2012-13, an increase of about nine percent over the previous fiscal.

The plan was finalised at a meeting between Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy in Delhi.

For 2012-13, the Planning Commission had approved a plan of Rs.48,953 crore. Ahluwalia complemented the state government for efforts to make development truly inclusive and also for the efforts aimed at promoting public private partnership in the development of both social and physical infrastructure.

He said better involvement of private sector would be needed during 12th Plan period as state funds would not be enough to meet the needs of infrastructure development.

He said the state should come forward with the suggestions that can improve efficiency of flagship schemes and commission would consider them while finalising plan document.

He said the state had come out with lot of innovative ideas, especially in social sector, health and education. He said the state's performance in agriculture was impressive and much above the national average. He noted that Andhra Pradesh is among the large states which have registered four per cent plus growth in agriculture.

The GSDP (gross state domestic product) growth of the state is more than the national level growth rate and the sectoral growth rates also places the state above the national growth rates.

Reddy told reporters that the state had set a target of 10 percent growth during the 12th five-year plan (2012-17) against the national average of nine percent. The growth in agriculture sector is targeted at six percent, in industries 10.5 percent and in services 12.5 percent.

It was pointed out that in the 11th plan outlay for Andhra Pradesh was approved at Rs. 1,87,797 crore of which it has achieved Rs. 1,61,756 crore, i.e. 86 percent the approved outlay. The 12th plan of the state has targeted plan outlay of Rs.3,42,842 crore of which Rs.48,935 crore was approved for 2012-13.

The Planning Commission expressed concern over the slow progress in the literacy rate and pointed out that as per Census 2011, the state's literacy rate is 67.6 percent with male literacy at 75.6 percent and female literacy at 59.74 percent. The state's literacy rate is much lower than the national average of 74 percent.

The Planning Commission termed performance in human development as satisfactory. There was a fall in the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) during the 11th plan but the achievement fell short of the target of 28.

The total IMR of the state is 43 per thousand live births with wide disparity in IMR between rural and urban sectors. It is 47 and 31 per thousand live births in rural and urban sectors, respectively.