Govt working on action plan to push growth at district level

The government is working on an action plan to promote economic activities at district level and push overall growth rate of the country, the commerce ministry said.

Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu today chaired a meeting on the proposed action plan on role of districts in economic growth of the country.

"The aim of the meeting was to prepare an action plan to increase the growth rate at the district level by 3-4 per cent per annum by accelerating economic activities. Larger aim of this initiative is to help India become a USD 5 trillion economy," the commerce ministry said in a statement.

Prabhu stated that to push growth further, a bottom-up approach is required and for this districts need to be considered as planning and execution units, facilitating change at micro level.

"In order to achieve this aim, few districts including Sindhudurg, Ratnagiri, Varanasi and Vishakhapatnam, across different states will be selected in phase 1 of the pilot project," it said.

As part of the plan, profile of the districts will be created besides identifying strengths and local resources.

It said that efforts will be made to converge government and private initiatives and introduce mechanism for handholding and mentoring.

"The minister directed the officials to create an action plan in this regard at the earliest," it said.

Representatives from different ministries including commerce and industry, agriculture, MSME, skill development, NITI Aayog, Department of Economic Affairs, and states such as Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh, Assam, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh were present in the meeting.